


Through the Wire (Up in Flames)

by flonkertons



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Detectives, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-18 17:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 46,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9394670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flonkertons/pseuds/flonkertons
Summary: Clarke hadplannedon spending her summer break sleeping in until noon, catching up on the last season of Bakeoff, and maybe flirting with Bellamy Blake. But when Monty asks her to investigate a fire at the bakery, she and Bellamy are drawn into a plan to destroy a bakery, and if they're not careful, the two of them as well.





	1. start

**Author's Note:**

> ALTERNATE TITLE: IT'S A NANCY DREW THING
> 
> Sooooo background: in the summer of 2015, I read a LOT of the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys Supermystery books because I love Nancy Drew and also Nancy/Frank forever. However, this means that this has been in the works since December 2015, where it has undergone two season changes in the text, and I almost abandoned it a couple hundred times because I got stuck on a particular part (if u know me, you'll know exactly which part) and I got really busy with school and work and also I didn't want to write anything. (I've learned that I'm never writing anything with "plot" ever again.) I didn't want another season to pass before I finished this so IN THE SPIRIT OF ME TRYING TO CHURN OUT AS MUCH WORK AS I CAN BEFORE I GET TOO BUSY WITH SCHOOL TO DO ANYTHING ELSE (which is like, now), I finished it and I WIPE MY HANDS OF IT. 
> 
> Bear in mind, since I started this before season 3 even began, there's some stuff that is a holdover of that time period. I thought about rewriting some parts of it but honestly, that's so much work. Idk how many parts there will be, but I wanted to post it in parts because it's so long (by my standards), I didn't want to format it all. IT IS COMPLETE THOUGH. I made myself complete it before I posted anything.
> 
> ANYWAYS, LONG STORY SHORT. I hope you like it ;____;

Clarke is fiddling with the broken AC in her car when she gets a text from Monty. It's been an awful last day of school, which she didn't even know _could_ happen, but there were two fights, a nosebleed, one kid professing his love for her (worst moment of the day), the aforementioned broken AC on probably the hottest day of the year, and a long voicemail from her mother (and that was just in the morning) but she's free for two and a half months and looking forward to going home and taking a nap on the couch. Maybe even taking a bath later. And then repeating that every day until school starts back up.

 _Anya's is on fire!!!!_ , it says, and she squints at it as the sun catches on the screen. The AC gives a pathetic whine.

 _What_ , she texts back, following it up with a few question marks in the second text. She looks at his text again, is sure that she read it right.

There's still no response. _What????_ , she tries again and seconds tick by without seeing the three dots on her screen. She tries to call him, even though Monty doesn't answer phone calls even on important days when _HIS BEST FRIEND IS TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHETHER OR NOT THE FIRE CONSUMED HIM_. It's not an unreasonable request for him to answer this one call.

" _Really?_ " Clarke mutters, smacking the AC a bit more viciously than necessary before driving out of the high school parking lot. It's not like she could really break it _more_. She mutters under her breath the whole five minute drive to Anya's Pastries, the town's semi-famous bakery (courtesy of its two blue ribbon wins in the county-wide contests for best bakery), mostly cursing Monty for not answering her texts and calls and then feeling bad about it because it's impossible to be mad at Monty.

When she pulls up – or rather, slows to a stop – to the block away from Anya's, there's fire trucks and police cars in front of the building and people standing across from it, but as far as she can tell, the building's fine and so, she hopes, is everyone else. She steals a parking space from a teenager and zips across to their lot, weaving her way around a number of people, jumping up and down, peeking around shoulders to find Monty.

Finally, she spots him standing with a few other people, some she recognizes as his co-workers, some she doesn't. "Monty!" she nearly shouts as she reaches him. Startled, he whirls around, eyes wide. Harper waves at her; Clarke waves back, mouthing a "You okay?" at her and the other girl nods back with a smile.

"Clarke! What are you doing here?"

She holds up her phone. "You said Anya's was on fire and then didn't text me back! I was worried you fell into the fire or something!"

Sheepishly, Monty laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. "Oh. I – thought I… had. Okay, I just forgot. I'm sorry!"

She sighs, a bit more heavily than necessary, but he looks guilty and apologetic. It's really impossible to stay mad at him. "It's fine," she waves off. "But are you okay? Is everyone else okay? Is the bakery okay? What _happened_?" She doesn't realize that she's gesticulating wildly in front of her until Monty places his on her shoulders to still her.

"I'm fine and so is everyone else," he says calmly. "I don't know what happened but we just, well Harper was the one who noticed it first, but she yelled about a fire and then the alarm was going off and I don't know, everyone was evacuated after that." His soothing tone helps a little but she frowns, still uncertain and concerned.

"Just all of a sudden?"

"Yeah," he says, shrugging. "It was in the kitchen. Maybe something blew up, I don't really know. We're fine though." Monty squeezes her shoulders as a sign of reassurance and she relaxes, just barely.

"Okay," she says. "Just text me back next time you say there's a fire, please."

He draws her into a quick hug but she wraps her arms around him tight, a hold he returns. "Bad day?" He asks as they sway in their hug.

"Awful. At least you're okay," she replies and she feels a lot of the weight lift off, the stress of her day whoosh away thanks to the hug.

A throat clears behind them and when they stop hugging, there's a police officer around their age standing there. "I'm Miller," he says. "I'm supposed to be taking everyone's statements but I can come back later if this is a bad time." He says this all without much of a change in his tone but he does look apologetic for interrupting their hug.

"Oh no, it's fine," Clarke says. "I wasn't here when it happened, do you still need a statement?"

Miller shakes his head and walks Monty towards another group of people. Clarke watches them leave for a few seconds before she stops and combs her fingers through her hair. She takes the scrunchie (sparkly purple today) out of her ponytail, keeps it in her mouth while she sweeps her hair back into another ponytail. _Jesus Christ, I need to go home,_ she thinks.

"Clarke?"

Her hands are still holding her hair and the scrunchie is still in her mouth when she turns around, says, bewildered and the sound muffled, " _Bellamy?_ What are you –" Clarke stops, takes the scrunchie out to pull her hair up properly.

Bellamy Blake looks almost the same as he did the last time they had run into each other, out of nowhere – three months ago, gas station – the same messy hair, broad shoulders, smattering of freckles. He's in a loose white shirt, glasses sliding down his nose, hair in his eyes. Bellamy has always been hot, and she's thought he was for a long time, even when she had hated him for those first few weeks, but she can't remember a time she's seen him in _glasses_. Clarke tries her hardest not to linger, but she stares too long for it to be normal. It's just – Bellamy in glasses. "Uh, why are you here?"

"Well, you know me and fires," he says wryly. There's a beat before she huffs, crossing her arms.

"I still can't believe you talked me into that."

"I'm pretty sure you didn't need any _talking into_. You jumped on the idea."

"Not true," she says, just to be contrary. "How'd you end up _here_ , seriously?"

"I could ask the same thing," he points out, which. True. She can't remember the last time they texted and their catch up at the gas station had consisted of the cursory _hello, how are you,_ and _I gotta go, I just had to pee really bad_. The last they left off, Clarke was still in Phoenix and Bellamy was working on his MLS in Bloomington. Now they're both in Arkadia, a city that doesn't even register on standard maps.

"I asked first."

"I live here now."

" _What_? For how long?" She'd moved here about a year ago and if Bellamy had been here this _whole time_ and she had no idea, well – she didn't know what she would be doing, but since Arkadia isn't actually that big of a place, it seems completely unlikely, but who knows.

"Not long."

"I can't believe you didn't tell me," she says, like they're in regular contact. They had talked a bit after the case, but it was hard to stay in touch with someone between busy schedules, figuring out how to move away without pissing off her mom, trying to rebuild a friendship, and balancing her intense relationship with Lexa. It's a wonder she even made the move out successfully.

"I guess you should've just _known_."

She goes to smack his arm but Bellamy dodges, laughing until she notices his eyes flit over her head to somewhere behind her. He pushes his glasses up and actually sighs with the earnest air of suffering.

Before she can ask what's happening, he says, with resignation, "Great." Clarke turns around, scans the scattered groups of people, unsure of what she's supposed to be looking for until Bellamy guides her with a hand to her shoulder and pivots her until she's looking at Octavia Blake, who's chatting animatedly to a tall firefighter. Despite the heat, Octavia shivers in her t-shirt and apron – and her plan works because he offers her a blanket almost immediately, and she looks at him under her eyelashes, smiles at him shyly and Clarke knows from ten feet away, he's hooked.

"I'm not really sure about Octavia working somewhere like this if fire is a regular thing."

"Good luck trying to get her to go somewhere else," she says and they share an amused look. _As if_ , it says. "She works at the bakery too?" She tries to remember if she had known Octavia was also living in Arkadia, but if she hadn't known that Bellamy was here, there's no way she would've known Octavia was here too, so she settles on no.

"Too?" Bellamy says, turning to look at her.

"My friend Monty," she clarifies. "Normally there's no fire, though." Now that the crisis has passed, it's easier to joke about it.

"Well, it would definitely make the day more interesting."

"You know, I'm a bit worried about your fire thing," she says and he catches her eye before they both laugh, Clarke hiding her giggling against her shoulder, cheeks warm.

"Bell," Octavia says, clearly disappointed by his appearance. Clarke raises an eyebrow at that. When she notices Clarke, she sounds even _more_ disappointed, if possible, with an added chill infused in her greeting. "Clarke. Hi."

Clarke may not have gotten along with Bellamy at first, but circumstances necessitated an ability to work together, and through that, a mutual respect emerged, which later grew into a genuine friendship. Clarke and Octavia, on the other hand, do not get along. As far as she knows, it basically comes down to a lot of personality clash and Octavia disliking the fact that Clarke and Bellamy worked together, so raised eyebrows and reluctant civility is something she's used to.

"Hi, Octavia," she says. "How's it going?"

"Almost _died_ in a fire, yeah, and you?" Octavia shoots back and Bellamy shifts beside her, clearing his throat.

"O," he says, admonishes, and Clarke can imagine the look he's giving her. Octavia rolls her eyes and wraps the blanket around herself tighter. Her smile is still a little forced but she scoots closer to the mystery firefighter.

"This is Lincoln," she says in lieu of another attempt at conversation. "He saved my life."

Lincoln looks sheepishly alarmed at them, hastily clarifying, "I really didn't do a thing. She wasn't in any actual danger."

Bellamy does a quick scan of his sister and although she doesn't look worse for wear, just slightly cold, Clarke understands his need to make sure. (She _did_ drive down here to do the same for Monty, after all.) "Really?"

"Yes, thanks to _Lincoln_ ," Octavia interjects.

"Everyone left as soon as the alarms were triggered so the only lasting damage will be to that part of the kitchen," Lincoln informs him.

She's glad that everyone is safe, that – for the most part – the bakery is safe, but she can't help but be curious. "Have you figured out what started the fire?"

"Oven malfunction," he answers.

Sharply, Bellamy directs his question to Octavia. "There's malfunctioning ovens?"

"How am I supposed to know?"

Quietly but assuredly, Lincoln adds, "These things happen sometimes, unfortunately." He handles it with the experience of long reassuring strangers about their loved ones' safety. "The fire was pretty contained, though."

"Well, as long as it was _contained_ –"

" _Bellamy_ ," Octavia says, stepping forward.

" _Okay_ ," Clarke says quickly, grabbing Bellamy's elbow while he fights her hold for a few seconds until she tightens it in warning. He stops after that, but the scowl is in danger of being permanently etched onto his face.

With a little bit of reluctance, Bellamy turns to Lincoln. "Right. Thanks."

Humbly, "It's just my job."

"Still." Bellamy nods his head at Octavia. "C'mon, let's go home."

"Actually, I'm going to stay here for a bit –" Bellamy narrows his eyes. Octavia blinks at him with angelic innocence; Clarke would applaud if she didn't know it would've worked even without the pretense. "–Just until the thing gets settled and Anya can let us know what'll happen next." The Blakes stare at each other for a moment, but just as she predicted, he breaks first.

"And how am I supposed to get home?"

Octavia looks at her now, slightly pleading and slightly annoyed that Clarke's her only chance at taking Bellamy away so she can flirt with Lincoln in peace. _You owe me_ , she thinks, trying to send the same message to her. Octavia nods shortly to agree.

"C'mon," Clarke says, pulling on his elbow again, tugging him to turn with her as she waves a goodbye at Octavia and Lincoln. "I'll take you home."

***

"You have to yank it a little," Clarke says as she opens her car door. It's the only door that really opens without hassle, which is good for her because when she's running late for work, she doesn't really want to spend five minutes fighting with the door first. She should've warned him beforehand but she had been busy saying goodbye to Monty. Bellamy's door is one of the worse ones, but he manages to get it open quickly and she spares a second to gape at him.

"I have a shitty car too," he explains.

"It's not shitty!"

"Well-loved," he corrects, grinning as he puts his seatbelt on. She turns the car on, automatically reaching for the AC. Right. It's broken. "Broken AC?"

"Raven can't get to it until next week but I'm building character." It totally sucks. She misses air conditioning.

"You're just stubborn about accepting help. Make a left here."

She turns left. "I'm not stubborn about accepting help –"

"You were stranded at that warehouse and _still_ fought me when I said I'd pick you up!" Bellamy says, incredulously, indignantly. He also has an offended voice that sounds eerily similar, but that one lacks a certain kind of self righteousness.

For the record, she'd like to point out that she probably could've managed the walk back through sheer will and determination alone, even if it had been a bad leg. On another important, though slightly technical, note, she wouldn't really classify it as a _fight_ , just a _slight disagreement_ in raised voices that ended in a reluctant agreement for Bellamy to come by.

"You were being an ass the whole time," she says primly. "Keep going?" Bellamy makes a noise of assent and she drives on. "Anyways, it's my _car_. I'm particular about it."

"Why?"

She's quiet for a second before she answers, the only noise they hear is the car on the road. "It just is." Her tone brokers no argument and he understands since he doesn't press further. Maybe it's not that big of a deal, but it means a lot to her.

After a few minutes of navigation, he says, "You never did tell me how you ended up here, you know."

"Oh," she says, because she had completely forgotten. "I – had to get away. And Raven and Monty were here, so I ended up applying to a bunch of jobs here and the school offered me a position as their nurse so I just… left. It's…" She tries to think of a good word to sum it up. "Not bad. I like it and I like this place and it really beats Phoenix." _Beats still living with my mom_ , is what she means. Bellamy nods, hums a sound that tells her he gets the real reason.

Parents are a touchy subject for both of them. Her father died when she was 18, alienated and exiled and her mother didn't even care. His father had died young and his mother was absent, leaving Bellamy with the responsibility of taking care of his baby sister. Bellamy became an emancipated minor at 17 to take care of Octavia. It was one of the things they'd shared with each other that night they got drunk and became allies-of-sorts. Sometimes she's still surprised at how much they shared with each other, but she had felt so much better letting it out, having someone know, and when Bellamy took her home that night, paused at her door and wished her a goodnight, she knew it was mutual.

She taps her fingers against the steering wheel as she turns another left. "Enough about me!" She breezes past, eager for a subject change. "When did you move here?"

He thinks about it for a second. "It's been about a month? Three and a half weeks."

"I thought you liked Bloomington, I mean, you always seemed to talk about it like you did."

"I did. I do." Bellamy plays with the hem of his shirt. "I liked it for school and it was a great school to go to, obviously. But it kinda sucked being somewhere without anyone else I knew and I missed Octavia and you know. Things just happen. Octavia's roommate moved out, so I moved in."

Clarke gets loneliness. She _really_ gets loneliness. "You planned well, though."

"Yeah?"

"There's always libraries around."

He smiles. She knows he smiles because she can hear it in his voice. "I'm waiting for a librarian to retire so I can make my move."

"You can even let old ladies can't enjoy their retirement in peace?"

"Could be old men too. Think outside the box, Clarke."

She laughs a little. "Sorry, that's on me. How's Octavia liking having to live with her big brother again?"

"She loves it, of course. I'm always around to ruin her plans, of which she has many and I approve of none."

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"I try to stay out of her way. She goes to work, goes to school – well, once the semester starts, and hopefully, by that time, I'll be settled in, maybe even have a job, maybe find somewhere else to live." He waits a little, sounds a bit nervous when he continues on. "I'm supposed to be working on my second book but mostly I'm not."

It's like a loud _screech_ in their conversation. Clarke furrows her eyebrows, looking at him again, thankful that there's no one else on the street. " _Wait_ ," she says slowly. " _Second_ book?" He'd had written a _first_ one?

Bellamy slumps a little in his seat, runs a hand through his hair. Through a mumble, "'S'not that big of a deal. It's just a short mystery novel."

Her mouth drops open. It's a defining fact about Clarke: loves mystery novels. "You couldn't lead with that? Hey Clarke, how are you, lovely fire we're having, oh and by the way, I'm a published author now. Of _mysteries_!" Somewhere in between the surprise, she's also impressed. Bellamy has a way with words, but she never knew he wanted to be a writer. Maybe he didn't, but he _had_ written something.

"Up ahead on the right," he says instead, clearly hoping she'll go along with the diversion. Clarke is not diverted.

"Seriously," she says as she pulls up to the curb. "That's really cool." Clarke knows Bellamy isn't one to brag about himself, finds it very hard to deal with praise, deflects whenever anything resembling a compliment crosses him, but she can't not tell him the truth. It _is_ really cool that he published a book he wrote. She makes a brief note to google it later.

"I–" He clears his throat. "Thank you." He fiddles with the seatbelt and she smiles at the steering wheel. He finally gets the seatbelt to unclick – another thing about her car she forgot to warn about – and shuffles in his seat.

"See you around sometime?" He asks, slightly hesitant even in his smile.

"Yeah, definitely," she says, offering a more certain smile back. His smile ticks up.

Bellamy opens the door and a rush of humidity swoops in. "Thanks for driving me back."

"Anything for your sister's love life." When he groans, she smirks.

"It's that bleeding heart of yours." She scoffs; like he's one to talk. Just as he's about to step out of the car, he leans back against the seat. "I forgot to tell you earlier."

"Hm?"

"I like the scrunchie. That's how I recognized you."

Clarke's hand automatically flies to her ponytail. "Other people wear scrunchies."

"Not like you," he shrugs, which doesn't even make sense, but she doesn't have a chance to protest because he's waving goodbye and closing the door behind him.

She debates it for a second, bites her lip before making up her mind. She rolls down the other window and shouts to his back, "Bellamy!"

He turns around, the slight wind billowing at his shirt. As he walks back to her shitty car, he raises an inquiring eyebrow.

Leaning across the console, Clarke doesn't even mind the cold air. Bellamy eventually gets near enough so she doesn't have to keep shouting. "This is the first car that's really mine," she says. "That's why I'm stubborn about it."

He nods, slowly, but it doesn't feel like he's making fun of her for it. Finally, with a slight grin, he says, "Get the AC fixed anyways or you're going to die."

She flips him off with a grin of her own.

Bellamy drums his hand on the door. "It was really nice to see you today."

She doesn't hesitate to say, "Me too."

***

By the time she gets home, dusk is settling and the shoes by the door tell her that Raven's home. It took a few months to fix everything that had gone wrong in their friendship, but eventually they came to an understanding, and eventually they became friends again. Their friendship had been one of the main reasons she had been so hesitant to turn in Finn, but even though she knew it would break Raven's heart, even though it broke her own heart, she couldn't _not_ do it. It's not a _stronger_ friendship, but the pieces are all there and Clarke's glad that it's back to a place where it could be better.

She throws herself onto the couch, wondering if she can fall asleep in three seconds. Probably not. She's terrible at napping.

"Can we get pizza tonight?" She yells, knowing that she'll shout back sooner or later.

Sure enough, Raven yells back a second later, "It's my turn to pick!"

"Can you pick pizza? Please?"

"We had pizza last week," Raven pipes in, tapping Clarke's leg with her cane as a greeting before sitting on the coffee table. Clarke scrunches her face at her.

"Yeah, that was _last_ week."

"I think you need to branch out."

"I think you're a pizza hater."

"Go order the damn pizza."

The pizza arrives twenty minutes later – Raven's choice (veggie lovers) – and they're too lazy to change the channel from the local news, which means they have to suffer through Monty's friend Jasper blustering his way through the weather report. There's almost no way someone could be _so_ bad at delivering _temperatures_ , but somehow, someway, Jasper Jordan has achieved it. Raven likes to boo whenever he's on. Clarke would be more sympathetic except she kind of hates him on principle since he stopped talking to Monty after he 'made it big' with his gig and decided he was too good for him. (Monty says he'll get over it, but Clarke's never been a forgiving person, even if she doesn't know the guy personally.)

"He doesn't even have nice hair," Raven scoffs, crust in hand. She takes a bite out of it and goes back to waving it around. "Weathermen should at least have nice _hair_."

"It was really a mistake to shave it like that. Look at his  _hairline_."

"And now back to Christy!" Jasper chirps nervously on the screen before they show a blonde woman in a crisp suit at the anchor desk, looking the very opposite of Jasper. Clarke laughs a little spitefully and reaches for another slice of pizza, tearing a piece of it off to stuff it into her mouth.

She's only vaguely registering what Christy from the news is saying until she sees a reporter standing outside the bakery. The headline is a bold 'LOCAL BAKERY GOES UP IN FLAMES EARLIER THIS AFTERNOON' and before she realizes what she's doing, she's slapping the air next to her to get Raven's attention.

"Look," she says, pointing to the TV. She doesn't know how she missed cameras being there earlier, but the footage is definitely from around the time she had been there. "I was there, Monty texted me, there was a fire –"

"Slow down," Raven commands, frowning at the screen as the reporter states the facts: at 3:12 PM, Wednesday, June 15, a small fire broke out in the kitchen, the fire department responded within a few minutes, though everyone inside the bakery had been evacuated by the time they arrived, and there seemed to be no injuries.

Raven looks over at Clarke, but her eyes are focused on the reporter who's trying to get a statement from a nearby fireman. "How'd _you_ get caught up in it?"

Absently, she gestures to her phone on the table. "I wasn't _caught up_ in it. Monty texted me about it but then forgot to reply back so I got worried and ended up going down there but he said everything was fine and then I ran into Bellamy who almost got into a fight with a fi–"

"Blake? The guy who helped with the – you saw him?"

"He lives here now, I guess? And Octavia apparently _also_ works at the ba– did you know he wrote a book?"

"I can't imagine when I would've found that out."

" _Anyways_ ," Clarke says, "He wrote a book. I drove him home. Anya's is fine." She misses the look that Raven gives her, her attention back to Christy on the news, who's thanking the reporter and bantering with her co-anchor, a smarmy looking guy with his hair slicked back.

"This doesn't seem to be their month at all," Brad remarks, shaking his head in fake sympathy. Clarke resists the urge to roll her eyes.

"Definitely not! This makes it the third time this year that the bakery has had to close business for the day due to malfunctioning equipment." She glances down at her notes, affecting a much more believable sympathetic tone. "Earlier this month, there was that issue with the mixers, and just last week, they had to delay opening due to a problem with the power generator."

"I just wanted a croissant that morning too!" Brad says, which prompts him and Christy to share a forced laugh.

A shuffling of papers later, Christy wraps up the subject in her clear voice, "Hopefully, this is the last of the bad luck, especially with summer upon us. When we return, Hal Bentley has the inside look into the Founders' Day parade!" As the news flips to commercial, Clarke hears Raven getting up from the couch, limping around the table to get to the kitchen. There's a jingle that'd normally get stuck in her head, but Clarke isn't paying attention, her mind on what she's just heard. ' _The third time this year'_ echoes in her head.

It's probably nothing.

She frowns.

"You okay?" Raven's voice cuts through her thoughts, effectively distracting her from the way her brain had already started to swirl around theories and conclusions.

"Yeah, don't worry."

***

Clarke answers the door with the spoon in her mouth and her third bowl of Cocoa Puffs in her hand. The knocking had been persistently insistent and thus, impossible to ignore, even though she had been curled up under her favorite blanket, catching up on the last season of Bakeoff, and comfy in her penguin socks.

She doesn't care that she looks like this while she's answering the door. It's _summer vacation_. She gets to look however she wants.

"Monty!" She says, or mumbles around the spoon. Stepping aside to let him inside, Monty makes a beeline for the couch, sitting down before she finishes locking the door. He looks anxious, a crease on his forehead, and he's flipping his phone around.

She sits down next to him, placing the bowl of cereal on the table. It was getting too soggy anyways. "What's up?"

He pauses for a long time before finally blurting out, face stricken, "I don't think that fire was an accident."

"Wha–"

"And I think I know who did it."

At this, Monty looks certain, his mouth set in a firm line, his demeanor serious. He looks at her like she should agree with him, then and there. It's not like the thought hadn't crossed her mind, and with the other night's news, it definitely featured in her drifting-to-sleep thoughts, but that's how Clarke _works_. She had assumed that was just part of her process. She's inherently questioning. She thinks of ten different possibilities at once when presented with a situation. She doesn't know how _not_ to be suspicious immediately. But she doesn't want to shoot Monty down, partly because it's not an impossible statement and partly because she's intrigued by the strength of his assertion.

She folds her legs up to sit more comfortably. "I'm listening."

"I was thinking about it last night and I remembered that we had just gotten someone in last week to check on all the ovens because a lot of the other equipment was messing up. But they said everything was fine and we didn't have any problems with them until yesterday."

"So you think someone tampered with the oven?"

Monty snaps his fingers excitedly. "Yes! And the only person who was in the kitchen at that time was Murphy!"

It feels like she's missing something, despite following his train of thought, but she can't deny that she's curious. "You don't have cameras?"

"Anya doesn't believe in those."

" _Okay._ " Of course she doesn't. No one wants Clarke to have a nice summer vacation. "So no one else was there?"

"I asked Anya and she said it was just him." He leans in like he's telling a secret. "And a while back, when he first started, I always caught him leaving his cigarettes everywhere, I had to put out a small fire in the back once – it _has_ to be him."

Murphy's timing in the kitchen would make him suspect for the action. But as a general rule, she needs more than just circumstantial evidence to make a claim. Something still doesn't make sense. "He's an employee there, right? Why do you think he would do this?"

"He's one of those 'fuck the world, I hate everyone, go fuck yourself' people. He probably would do it for fun."

"That's hard to pin."

In a hopeful voice, coupled with his best doe eyes guaranteed 100% effective, "But you're _Clarke_. You've gotten people for less!" Her neck feels warm even as she's waving his words off.

"I… find missing jewelry and con cheating boyfriends," she protests. "It's _nothing_."

"And the Finn thing!" Monty says fervently.

She fixes him with a look. "That was different."

" _How?_ "

"I had help! And it's not something I'm really _proud_ of," she adds, almost mumbling. It's been a year and she's made do with the fact that she'll never get rid of the guilt of helping to sentence her ex-boyfriend-type to jail, but it's not been an easy thing to come to terms with.

"I didn't mean it like that," he says, guilty. "I'm sorry. I just thought –" He scratches his arm nervously. Clarke takes one look at him, knows that he's telling the truth, because Monty doesn't bullshit around, and gives up.

"I don't know what I'll be able to find," she cautions. "But I trust you and I'll see what I can do, okay?" Surprise flits across his face before he gathers her into a quick hug.

" _Thank you_ ," he says. "Do you want to come by later and just check the place out? It's still closed for today but –"

"I'll be by in a bit." She tries really, really hard not to think about how she was going to take an afternoon nap later. That wouldn't help. The smile she flashes Monty is almost genuine too.

Monty stays a bit longer, telling her more about Murphy – he's one of the bakers, started a year ago, constant bad attitude but apparently his bread gets rave reviews from customers – before he leaves, telling her to text him whenever she's ready to go. That gives her enough time to finish a new bowl of cereal, nap for an hour, find non-pajama clothing to wear, and lay around in an act of rebellion against her last-minute plans before she drags herself up off the couch and out the door.

***

Clarke's not a real detective.

She's not.

It's just that – _sometimes,_  she can't help but stick her nose in. It was really her dad's fault. Jake Griffin had loved mysteries and because Clarke loved her dad, she loved mysteries too. It was never supposed to be more than a passing fancy, a hobby in common, until she had stumbled into her first case (October 24, 2011, vandalism of the university greenhouse, a theatre student did it) and from then on, it was kind of fun finding things her roommates lost or trapping cheating boyfriends.

Ironically, her first real case (whatever that meant) had involved defending her cheating ex-boyfriend.

It was also, as it turned out, the first time she met Bellamy Blake.

It's a classic story: accused of embezzlement, cheating ex-boyfriend begs girl he made into the other woman to help him prove his innocence, waits for her to say yes. She says yes. (It's not her best moment, but. She had been so _convinced_ he was telling the truth because that's how Finn _was_ – good at telling the truth the way he wanted it to be told. She thought she had learned the first time. Obviously she hadn't.) Girl runs into arrogant dick trying to prove that cheating ex-boyfriend is guilty. Constantly ends up running into arrogant dick, bickering with him, maybe flirting with him, getting close to him, finding out he's not actually an arrogant dick, fighting with him again. (It's a cycle.) Girl finds out cheating ex-boyfriend lied to her (again), has a breakdown in not-actually-a-dick's arms, teams up with him, sends cheating ex-boyfriend to jail.

It'd probably be a good Lifetime movie.

***

On her way to Anya's, she gets distracted. One minute she's turning the corner to head towards the bakery, the next, she's standing in the mystery section of the bookstore, in front of the _Be-Cla_ s. _Blake_ isn't hard to find and there's a few Blakes, but only one Bellamy Blake so she spots his name easily. Clarke pulls a copy off the shelf and stares at it. It's a thin softcover, _A Wrinkle in Crime_ titled across, _by Bellamy Blake._

 _A New York Times bestseller_ is stamped along the bottom of the cover, a demanding text against the dark cover.

She shakes her head, lets out a disbelieving breath. _It's just a short mystery novel_. "A New York Times bestseller," she mutters, reaching for her phone.

Her finger stops her screen from scrolling further, pressing down on _Bellamy Blake_ before she can talk herself out of it. It doesn't occur to her that it might not be the same number, that he could've gotten a new phone, that he might not –

"Hi?"

She has _I can't believe you're a New York Times bestselling author and you didn't tell me_ rehearsed on loop, but what comes out is, "Are you busy?" Admittedly, she's not great at phone calls (who _is_ , honestly) and making cold calls for her mother's senatorial campaign never really helped her like it should've. It's hard to break.

"Hello to you too," Bellamy says.

"Sorry. Hi." A pause. "How are you?"

"Why'd you call?"

She glares at the book – Bellamy's book – in her hand. "To see if you were busy."

"Depends on why you're asking," he says.

"Because I want to check out a bakery."

It takes surprisingly little convincing to get him to meet her at the bakery; he must be extremely bored or extremely curious, and either way works in her favor. Even with the cursory look through his book and then waiting to pay for it before stashing it in her bag, she arrives there before both Bellamy and Monty. At least this time Monty's texted her to let her know he's on his way.

A tug of her ponytail knocks her off balance with a short yelp and Bellamy's deep voice is annoyingly pleased. "Green this time?"

Her hands go to her ponytail, tightening it back to its original state, and making sure the green scrunchie is in place, as she turns around. "Can't you say hi like a normal person?" It does not escape her notice that he's still wearing glasses, because _of course_ she can't escape it.

In a higher voice that doesn't match hers at all, he says, "' _Are you busy?_ '" with an eyebrow raise that clearly indicates that he's won the point there. Even so, she doesn't want to give him the satisfaction of admitting it, so she does the second best thing and just ignores it.

"I was making a business call," she says stiffly.

Bellamy scrutinizes her and then does the same to the bakery next to them. There's no damage to the front, as far as she can tell. "You think something with that fire's weird?"

"Monty thinks so," she begins, then stops as she thinks about it. That's not really true. She hadn't seriously entertained the thought but listening to Christy from the news list off Anya's misfortunes had given her pause. "It _sounds_ weird when you think about it. You think so too," she points out, picking up on how quickly he had figured her out.

He takes a moment to answer. "It sounded weird that day," he says finally, trying to look into the windows. "But what are you thinking you'll find?"

If it had been a year ago, Bellamy wouldn't have even listened to her, let alone asked her for her thoughts. She hadn't been any better, so convinced she was on the right side, that Finn wasn't lying to her, that she could do it alone that she disregarded anyone else's perspectives. She's glad it's not a year ago.

"I have no idea," she says with a wry grin.

Bellamy goes to the door to peer inside. She's not sure if he's looking for something, or what his goal is, but she doesn't stop him.

"I'm actually surprised you called me to help with this," he says, his eyes straight ahead.

"Why?" She walks over to stand next to him, her back against the window, because it's easier to talk when he's not a few feet away.

He shifts so he's leaning against the door with his shoulder, facing her. "We weren't very keen on working together last time."

She only barely manages to stop herself from rolling her eyes. "I think we're past that, aren't we?" Hopefully, at least. Having a panic attack in Bellamy's arms when they weren't even friends, weren't even not-enemies, was bad enough; at the very least, it should make things like _well, we kinda hated each other at one point_ moot.

He looks at her like he's searching for something in her words, and it feels familiar and warm. She remembers the first time he looked at her like that, that night when she had admitted she was wrong about Finn's innocence, when she had asked Bellamy for help. He had looked at her just like this, then said, _looking to you, Princess_ , lifting his glass of whiskey to clink with hers.

"Just checking," he finally says and she does roll her eyes this time.

"And, really, it's mostly just because you're in town," she adds nonchalantly, shrugging her shoulders to emphasize her point.

"Right," he says dryly. "My timing's still excellent then."

"Don't let anyone tell you you don't have any marketable skills."

"Good one," he deadpans, pushing his glasses up when they start slipping down his nose.

She blurts it out without thinking. "When did you start wearing glasses?"

His hand pauses under the frame, caught off guard by the sudden question. "I've always had them."

"Not – this is the first time I've seen them," she finishes, trailing off lamely. They're just _glasses_. Plenty of people look good in glasses.

"I haven't seen you in like, a year. Do you hate them? I actually can't see without them and my contacts are at home so I kinda need them."

"No," Clarke says, vehemently fighting back an embarrassing blush. "I just – wondered. They're. Fine."

"Fine," he repeats, a twitch at the corner of his mouth. "I'll loan them to you sometime since you like them _so_ much."

"I don't like them that much," even though she does. "And I have perfect vision, unlike _some_ people."

"Don't attack the innocent, Clarke."

"There's an innocent person here?"

He laughs before squinting out ahead of them. "Are we actually going inside at any point?"

She takes a quick look at her phone, but there aren't any new messages from Monty. Still, Bellamy doesn't have to know that. "Monty'll be here soon!"

"At least when I die of a heatstroke, they'll know who to blame."

"It's not even that hot."

" _You're_ not wearing a jacket."

" _I'm_ smart and checked the weather."

"I thought there was going to be a breeze!"

She rolls her eyes. "You can always take it off." Clarke means it innocently, not even as a serious suggestion, but Bellamy grins widely, leans in close to her face, tugs at the collar of his jacket. It's really unfair how much better he looks up close, and it's not even just because of his glasses. He's always looked good up close, something she's thought about too many times.

"Is this a proposition? Is that why you called me?"

In retaliation, she flicks at the collar, smiling sweetly when he pulls it out of her grasp. "Not a chance."

"Ouch."

Bellamy makes a face at her, something she returns, because _obviously_ , and of course, that's when Monty arrives.

He sounds amused and a little bewildered when he greets them with a wave. "Hey, guys."

"Monty!" she says, kicking off from the wall and pulling on his arm when she reaches him.

"Am I interrupting some–" he asks, a twinkle in his eye, and she accidentally grips his arm too tight as she laughs, a bit forced, feeling her cheeks flush for no reason at all. She blames the cold.

" _No_ ," she mumbles before pushing Monty in front of her so he stands between between her and Bellamy. "Monty, this is Bellamy. Uh, Blake. Octavia's brother? He does detective… stuff too. Bellamy, this is Monty. He thinks something's up with the fire." They shake hands, making introductory small talk in a way that suggests that there won't be a problem with them getting along. It's a bit relieving seeing that because she knows Bellamy doesn't get along with many people right away (she's a case in point), but if he and Monty get along, the job will be a lot easier. No egos to balance, tempers to manage, fights to mediate.

Bellamy's phone startles all three of them and he raises it up sheepishly at them, explaining, "Octavia, sorry, I'll be right back," as Monty shifts slightly towards Clarke, as he pretends he's not watching Bellamy. He's doing an awful job at it, not even making the _effort_ to look somewhere else that's in the vicinity of Bellamy talking on his phone.

"Who is he?"

"I _told_ you that already."

"He's an actual detective?"

"No, he's just… good at this stuff. He," she pauses, her eyes on Bellamy too. He runs a hand through his hair, something he only does when he's frustrated.  "We worked on the Finn thing together."

Monty's eyes widen. He doesn't know a lot about Finn, just that he dated her and Raven at the same time, was found guilty of embezzlement, and that Clarke was on the case. But still, it's not like it's a _normal_ thing to know about.

"It's not that big of a deal," she cuts in before he gets a chance to say anything. "It'll really help to have him look around too."

"And… he's good?" Monty isn't skeptical; he's just waiting for her to vouch for him.

"Yes." Her voice is firm. No one can take that away from him. Monty nods in response, leaning back against the door as they watch Bellamy finish up his call. He looks slightly agitated, but clearly trying his best to hide it, and there's a tuft of hair that's sticking up from where his fingers had run through it. Clarke almost snorts at the sight of it, almost wishes she could flatten it down.

"Took you long enough," she teases instead.

The corner of his mouth ticks up in an almost smile. "Well, I just wanted you to make you wait a little," he says, pocketing his phone and turning to Monty. "Sorry about that. She was wondering where I was. Do we get to see the mysterious bakery now?"

Almost as if it was a cue, Monty unlocks the door and opens it a tick.

A thought occurs to her, something that probably should've crossed her mind a lot sooner than _now_ when they've already opened the door. "We're… allowed to be here, right?" It's not too noticeable, but Clarke catches the way Monty freezes. "Monty."

"I mean…" He hedges along, his back still facing her and Bellamy. "Kind of?"

"What does _that_ mean?" She asks, certainly not in the low tone everyone cautions as the _watch out for Clarke_ voice. Bellamy stifles a laugh beside her and she glares at him. He shrugs at her in return, seemingly content to watch this play out. It was a bad idea to ask him along.

"I told Anya about my plan and she said it was okay, basically. She said yes when I asked her if I could show you around the place!" Monty flashes a quick smile at her, meant to soothe her. It would if he hadn't also said, "I think."

Clarke almost stops him, her face hopefully showing the disapproval she feels, but Bellamy nudges Monty further inside the doorway as the door opens wider.

"Bellamy," she starts, but doesn't finish the rest of her admonishment because his shoulder bumps against hers, his mouth right next to her ear. His hair tickles the side of her neck.

"Live a little," he whispers, before shouldering her inside.

***

"Did you know," Bellamy says from his crouched position in front of an oven. Clarke makes a noise, a _hm_ that tells him she's listening, although she's halfway out the back door. There's a dumpster twenty feet away but the back alley is otherwise empty. "I don't actually know anything about ovens."

She pokes her head back in for a second, hanging onto the doorframe. "That's what Google's for."

He looks over his shoulder at her and shakes his head. "Right, let me google what to look for in a broken oven."

"They're not _broken_ , just tampered with. Potentially. Where's Monty?" He hadn't said anything about going anywhere.

Bellamy waves a hand towards the door that leads to the front of the bakery. "He said he'll keep an eye on the door. I get the feeling we're not supposed to be here," he says, teasing.

"I'm blaming you if we get arrested," she shoots back, crouching down next to him.

" _You_ asked _me_!"

With a scoff, "As if I'd throw Monty under the bus." Bellamy huffs in protest but they get back to work, moving around the kitchen to take a look at all the equipment, doing their best not to touch anything unless absolutely necessary. Right now, she just wants to map out where everything is and some of the possible scenarios from the day before. They work around each other well, each of them covering one side of the kitchen before switching and double checking the other side. It really is easier with Bellamy around.

He breaks the comfortable working silence later, his arms crossed across his chest as he leans back against the back counter. The contemplative look on his face makes her stop what she's doing, rest her hip against the middle counter and raise an inquiring eyebrow.

"How come Nancy Drew gets to go around the world and we're stuck in a bakery in Arkadia?"

"Hey, don't knock Nancy. She's my dream girl."

"Mine too," he says, as if it's a given. It _is_ ; it's _Nancy Drew_. "But the point still stands. Where are our transatlantic flights? Hotel reservations? Encounters with royalty?"

Clarke bites back a smile, crossing her arms to mirror his stance. "Nancy doesn't do it for the perks."

"A little for the perks."

"Maybe a little."

The door to the kitchen creaks open as Monty peeks his head in. "Did you find anything?"

She and Bellamy shake their heads in unison. Monty looks disappointed.

"But we're going to talk to Murphy," she says. She hadn't exactly run it by Bellamy yet, but hopefully he'll agree.

"We're hoping he'll talk," Bellamy adds, picking up the conversation where she stopped. "When do you open again?"

"If nothing else happens, Anya says tomorrow."

"Then we'll be by tomorrow." Bellamy reassures him with an earnest promise and even though Monty doesn't know him well enough to figure out if he's lying or not, it's not very hard to see that Bellamy means it. Monty nods gratefully.

Sometimes, Bellamy Blake really was the most transparent person in the world.

***

"Hi honey, I'm home!" It's not so much Raven's bellowing that alerts Clarke to her arrival, but the characteristic door slamming a few seconds prior. Raven loves slamming doors, especially when she's not angry, for no reason at all, although Clarke just thinks she wants the door to come loose so she can create a brand new one out of the scrap metal she keeps everywhere around the house. Mostly, she doesn't question the things Raven does.

Lying along the couch, Clarke sets down the book down on her chest, open to the page she's on. "How was work?"

"Terrible. I need a new job."

"You run your own company."

"You're right. I should just fire everyone."

She snorts loudly, thinking back to last week when she had threatened the same thing. It's not a regular workweek if Raven doesn't almost fire everyone. She moves slightly to get into a better position to talk, forgetting that there's a book on her chest. Raven catches it before she loses her place in the book, her index finger acting as a bookmark as her eyes scan the cover. She flips it over, reads the summary quickly.

"What is this?" Raven asks.

"It's a book," she answers, slowly like she's waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's a book. With some effort – she had been on the couch for a few hours now, settled and warm – she turns onto her side facing Raven, laying her cheek on her palm.

"No shit, Sherlock," she says, even though Clarke has repeatedly insisted on being called Nancy. She doesn't have a _problem_ with Sherlock Holmes (her dad had loved him), but he wasn't her type. It's a bit unfair that he gets all the everyday references. Even if Nancy Drew wasn't her first choice in fictional detectives and dream true loves, she would still ask to be called something else. "Bellamy Blake wrote this."

Clarke tries and fails to snatch the book back. Raven just keeps it out of her way, but it's not hard when Clarke isn't moving far from her position on the couch.

"Trust me, I was just as surprised as you are." At first. Sometimes people could be smart and good writers but not know how to write a good story. That's not a problem here because it's genuinely good, enthralling and entertaining with the requisite plot twists she loves in a classic mystery, and it's an even better experience reading it when she actually knows the sister his protagonist is clearly based off. There's something about his writing too, the direct way he sketches out scenes, the easy flow of the narrative, the slight charm behind the dialogue, that keeps her hooked. She's almost halfway through the book.

Raven hums, flipping the book over in her hands a couple of times before tossing it back at her suddenly. Clarke has to scramble to grab for it, catching it clumsily, and she spares a second to glare at her before finding the page she was at and dog earing the corner. She sits up and stretches, attempting to stifle a yawn as she sets the book on the coffee table. Raven limps away towards the kitchen and after a second of deliberation (she's really _so_ comfortable), she gets up to follow her.

"Quick question," she says, when Raven's finished pouring basically an entire bottle of mustard on her turkey sandwich. She pretends she didn't see that. "Do you still have those bugs we used last time?"

Raven has a mouthful of bread when she answers. "Last time as in…" She nods to interrupt her before she finishes the sentence. They still don't mention Finn. It's probably not healthy, but Clarke knows Raven's not ready to talk about it, least of all with her.

"Probably," she shrugs. Then, with a hint of suspicion, "What are you doing?"

"What makes you think I'm doing something?" Raven's eyes are scrutinizing her, trying to figure her out. She takes another bite of her disgusting sandwich.

"You're asking for the bugs."

"That's a normal everyday thing."

" _Clarke_."

" _Raven_ ," she imitates in the same tone, faltering only when the other girl shakes her sandwich at her. "Fine, I'm looking into something for Monty."

Raven figures it out immediately. "The fire at the bakery."

"Possible inside job."

"Who?"

"Some guy named Murphy. I don't know, we're going to talk to him tomorrow." Raven nods, walking past her so Clarke follows her again, stopping when Raven pulls a box out of the hall closet, rifling through it, pausing every so often to toss something aside.

"Here," she says, throwing something at her. With a lunge, it lands in her palm. It's a small oval shaped device, something that crackles slightly when she turns it over. "I'll find some others later."

"Do you have those earpieces too?" A few seconds later, Raven tosses one at her, grinning with that sharp edge in her smile. Clarke can't help but return it. "Is there another one?"

"Doesn't Monty have to actually work?"

"Oh," Clarke says, scratching her nose. "It's for – actually, Bellamy's helping too."

Raven's grin turns from sharp satisfaction to smug interest. "The dream team together again?" She asks innocently, and it's like her eyes are actually dancing with glee. Clarke ignores that part.

"Only because he's in town," she tries, though it doesn't sound any more convincing than it had when she was joking around with Bellamy. "It's a favor for Monty."

"Right," she says with skepticism. No one does skepticism like Raven Reyes. "How's he doing?"

"He's fine," she says, because he probably is. "He wrote a book."

"So I saw." Raven tosses another earpiece at her, again catching her off-guard. "You should invite him over, we can all catch up."

" _You_ can," Clarke says, a bit defensively. "I just want to figure out what's up with the bakery."

"You can wear terrible disguises by day and play games at night!"

"I'm not going to do that," she insists firmly. Then, because she's a little baffled, "What do you think we do when we're on a case?"

Raven shrugs, makes a noncommittal noise. "Whatever was in those movies you've forced me to watch. Stakeouts, definitely. Lockpicking? Nearly getting caught while snooping around an office?"

She makes a face at her. "There are maybe stakeouts." On a good day; on a normal day, it's just talking to people and finding holes in their stories. There's a reason why she sticks to finding lost items; there's way more action involved.

"Invite him after the stakeout!" Raven suggests.

Clarke fixes a look on her, but Raven's unmoved, smirking now. Finally, because she knows it'll be easier to agree with her than to attempt a stand-off (over _nothing_ , even), she sighs. "Fine, I'll see if it comes up."

The satisfaction is back in her smile. "Good. Now I have a question."

"Yeah?"

"Hypothetically speaking, you probably don't want me to listen in on your stakeout conversations, right?"

" _Raven._ "

***

_I googled ovens last night_

_I know all the best brand name ovens now_

_Did you know those exist_

_Are you still sleeping_

_How are you STILL sleeping_

Bellamy's texts wake her up at 8:43 AM, which doesn't bode well for the rest of her day because as a general rule, she doesn't wake up before ten during break. But apparently, he wakes up incessantly early because his first text was sent at 7:14 AM and he has nothing better to do than to decide to ruin her sleep schedule.

In all fairness, it probably would've been better if she hadn't stayed up so late last night, but the _plan_ had been to read one more chapter and then go to sleep, but one chapter turned into four and four turned into six and six turned into drooling onto her pillow and Bellamy's book lying precariously near the edge of her bed. It was not the proudest moment of her life.

She's grumpy when she drives to the bakery, her AC still fucking up, which is annoying even if it's too gloomy outside to really need it, and finds a parking spot right across the street. Looking around, there doesn't seem to be many people around, especially not Bellamy, so she perches her chin on the steering wheel, her eyelids drooping to a tempting sleep.

A rapping against her car window startles her, her hand hitting the wheel painfully.

Bellamy's smiling at her, a hand raised in apology, and she rolls down the window.

"Sunglasses, really?" is the first thing she asks because there are some dangerously threatening thunderstorm clouds above them but Bellamy has on a pair of sunglasses. She's sad to report that his whole ensemble – especially with the sunglasses – works for him.

"I'm blending in," he says, handing over a cup of coffee, which she eagerly takes. "That's what everyone does."

She takes a slow sip, careful to not burn her tongue. "You're even _more_ noticeable. You _have_ done this before, you know."

He chuckles, takes a drink out of his cup too before walking around to get to the passenger side. With one wrench of the door, he slips in and pushes his sunglasses to the top of his head. He must be wearing contacts today and it's not _bad_ or anything, she was just – used to his glasses. "It's for dramatic effect."

"You would."

"Hey, I bought you coffee."

"You didn't put enough sugar in it. Two, for the record."

"Noted." Bellamy starts fiddling with the radio, but doesn't settle on anything and turns it off again. "What's our game plan again?"

"We go in, sit there like respectable customers who are also busy minding our business and when Murphy comes out for his front shift, we subtly question him." Hopefully, they'll be able to figure out how to do that subtly when the time comes.

"Good cop, bad cop?"

"Obviously. I'm glad you remembered how to do this."

"It's all coming back to me now."

"Better late than never," she says, holding the coffee cup in one hand and turning off the car with the other. "Come on, let's go."

***

"Stop that."

"I'm not doing anything!"

"I can _see_ your hand."

"How can you when you're so focused on your crossword puzzle?"

"Because I'm all-knowing and you're not even _pretending_ you're not stealing my food."

The banana bread he's ordered is halfway to her mouth when he finally sets his crossword down, giving her the best unimpressed look Bellamy Blake has to offer, but there's no use in _not_ eating it now, so she smiles at him as she chews. It's really his fault for not attempting to stop her before now.

"I just wanted to see if it was good," she defends, which had been true for the first bite. Bellamy shields the plate from her reach protectively and she huffs, stretches her legs out on her side of the booth so she's more comfortable. He picks up the crossword puzzle again, interjecting into their silence with questions about potential answers (7 across is definitely Potomac, even though Bellamy insists it isn't).

Unsurprisingly, sitting in a bakery and pretending they're not just there to discreetly interrogate an employee about whether or not he's to blame for the fire a few days ago is incredibly boring. There are other people using the place to get some work done, but for Clarke and Bellamy, there's only so much they can pretend to do while pretending to not keep an eye on everyone. Neither of them planned it out well enough that they actually have something to work on, so they resort to everything they can think of to pass the time.

In the hour and a half they've been here, they've played too many games of tic tac toe (Bellamy's currently leading), traded off on newspaper sections (local for Bellamy, comics for Clarke), switched off on sampling each pastry special they have to offer, ordered three cups of coffee (Clarke has, at least), and generally tried to look as unassuming as possible. No one's said a word about them being there, at least, so she counts that as a win. They came close when Octavia came in for her shift and gave them a wary eye, but Clarke's pretty sure she would've just thrown her out rather than Bellamy.

"16 down is Quincy, if you were wondering. For John Quincy Adams," he says, pointing his pen at her. She wasn't, but goes along with it. Bellamy likes sharing bits of trivia about them because apparently he's still as big of a nerd as she remembers him.

"Which president was he?"

"The sixth. I thought you would've been quizzed about this."

She purses her lips. "You think I would remember every president in order?"

He looks triumphant. "So you _were_ quizzed on it. I always thought the senator would do that to you."

"There was this contest she really wanted me to win."

"Of _course_ she did," he says and maybe she should take offense at how much Bellamy dislikes her mom, but she can't find it in her to care about it. He had a legitimate reason. As Senate Majority Leader, Abby Griffin had spearheaded a family welfare bill that, if passed, would have taken Octavia away from him. She didn't blame him for associating her with her mom, even though she had stated publicly that she was protesting it (which invoked a reaction almost on par with the time she told her mom she was bisexual, i.e. a lot of confusion). It took a while for him to understand that Clarke had nothing to do with it and had fought with Abby about it. "How's she doing?"

"Google Abby Griffin and take your pick of articles to find out," she says dully.

Bellamy stays quiet after that, but his eyes don't stray from hers. It's comforting, in the way that only Bellamy has ever achieved. "I have a fun Quincy fact for you," he says instead.

"Oh god," she says with feigned disinterest. "It better be good."

"He actually died in the House of Representatives," he says.

"What? Like right there?"

"If you want to be technical, he had a stroke there and then died two days later in the Capitol building."

"I did want to be technical, yeah," she says interrupting Bellamy as she spots Monty walk out of the kitchen. She slips out of the booth. "Hold that thought."

She catches Monty at the muffin display. "Pretend you're working," she says.

"I _am_ working," he says, looking at her in confusion. Clarke pulls out the tiny bag she's placed the two bugs Raven gave her last night in and slides it across the counter. Monty just looks at her like she's weird. She probably could've just handed it to him without that move.

"Can you put these in some places that aren't that noticeable?" she asks, already going over the mental map of the place that she's sketched out all morning. "Maybe under the cash register."

"And somewhere in the kitchen?"

She beams at him, loves that he's on the same page as her without needing to catch him up. "Perfect. And when's Murphy going to be free?"

"In fifteen minutes," Monty says, but his eyebrows pinch together. He adds another muffin to the tray. "He's in a bad mood today so you don't really have to talk to him if you don't want to."

"I can handle a bad mood," she says easily. She's lost count of how many people she's made mad with her discoveries.

"Not like a Murphy bad mood."

"Bellamy and I have a routine down."

Monty is clearly skeptical, but someone calls his name and he says a rushed _goodbye_ , picking up the bugs from the counter and hurrying back to the kitchen. Bellamy's not in their booth, though his crossword is lying on the table, and she doesn't even get a chance to look around for him before Octavia ambushes her, nearly giving her a heart attack in the process. Seriously, she can _hear_ how fast her heart starts to beat.

"What are you doing?" Octavia asks, hands behind her waist as she finishes tying the strings to her apron before crossing her arms.

"Trying to sit down –"

"With Bell," she says, rolling her eyes, and Clarke feels a flash of irritation at her attitude. "What are you guys doing here?"

"Ask your brother," she replies, just to satisfy that part of her that wants to be obtuse about it.

"I _did_. He said _doing a favor for Monty_. I didn't even know he knew Monty!"

"They met a few days ago," Clarke informs her. "And it _is_ a favor for Monty."

Octavia sits at the end of Bellamy's side of the booth, her eyes flashing in annoyance. "Why aren't you answering my _question_?"

"Why are you so _upset_ ," she asks back, leaning forward as she feels the familiar flare of a potential fight.

"I'm _not_. My brother needs to be focusing on his _book_ ," she says, almost gritting her teeth as she tries to control her volume. " _Not_ following you around again."

This time, Clarke's the one to roll her eyes, shaking her head in disbelief. "Bellamy would never _follow_ me anywhere," she says firmly, thinking back to the times getting him to meet her somewhere felt like pulling teeth and ignoring how easily he had met her at the bakery when she called yesterday. "And it's really not my business what he does. I don't know why you're yelling at me about it."

When she finally looks at Octavia, she's glaring at her but not saying anything in return, seemingly both mad that she has nothing to say and that she's looking at her. There's no winning with her, but at the same time, Clarke doesn't want to be the one to give in first by saying something, so a tense silence fills the air between them, alleviated only by her leg bouncing against the seat. Where the _hell_ is Bellamy anyways?

A quick scan around the room finds him at the cash register, leaning slightly against the counter, talking to the girl behind it, his face relaxed and open, laughter smoothing down the lines of his face. It's not that she's never seen him laugh before, because he's laughed with her sometimes – a fair number of times – but Bellamy looking relaxed is always a sight. It's hard to remember he even knows what that word means. (Clarke's the same way.)

Bellamy catches her eye all of a sudden and she jerks her gaze away, staring down at the table, fights a flush at the back of her neck. She can feel Octavia's narrowed stare on her.

"O," Bellamy's voice fills in a second later, "Shouldn't you be working?"

Clarke looks up. He has a plate in his hand, a danish and a cinnamon roll stacked on it, and places it in front of her. He elbows her arm and she scoots down to make room for him.

Octavia clears her throat. "Whatever you guys are doing here, don't let Anya find out, she won't like it."

He's definitely amused when he asks, "What do you think we're doing?"

"Nothing good," Octavia says with a final glare before jumping out of the seat and walking away. It's all too dramatic for this early in the day.

"What the hell was that?"

Shrugging, Clarke pokes at the cinnamon roll and licks away the icing from her finger. "Your sister hates me."

"Octavia doesn't hate you," he sighs. "She just –"

"Really doesn't like me at all?" She smiles at him to let him know she's not bothered, because she isn't. Plenty of people don't like her. If it did bother her, though, which it doesn't, it's only because it's not very fun to navigate Blake family politics.

"Doesn't get along with you," he tries to correct, giving her a stern look.

"Because she hates me."

There's a long inhale and the muscle in his jaw tightens. "I wish you guys got along."

" _I_ don't have a problem with her." (That much.) "Ask _her_ why she hates me."

"She doesn't _ha_ – she won't tell me," he replies, a little petulantly. He even slides down in the booth.

"Well, if I knew why," she offers, "I would definitely tell you."

"You can't even imagine what a weight off my shoulders that is," he says, bumping his shoulder against hers, an action she returns. Then, he sits up again, back straighter, signaling his shift into business mode. It's kind of disappointing.

"What'd Monty say?"

"That Murphy should be here any minute now and he's in a bad mood."

"Joy. One of those."

She snorts, then slaps the table. "Oh! Can you get my bag –" Bellamy doesn't spare her a clarifying glance before he gets her bag, plopping it down in front of her and sliding back into his seat next to her. Clarke digs through her bag for a second, admits that she needs to sort out everything she doesn't need anymore, and finally finds what she's looking for. "Here," she says, holding out her hand. Bellamy mirrors her, waits for her to drop the earpiece in his open palm.

He stares at it long enough that she's about to ask if he's okay, but he snaps out of it, his trance, whatever it was, and cocks his head at her. "Raven?"

"I think she might be a hoarder."

"They still _work_?"

"It's _Raven_ ," she says simply.

The kitchen door swings open and both their heads turn in time to see a guy walk out with an impressively dark glare on his surly looking face. She has a strong suspicion this is Murphy. Clarke's not one to judge someone by how menacing or not menacing their face is – as she has been, at various points in her life, been told she has an intimidating aura about her – but if she were, this guy would be a good place to start.

Murphy walks up to the cash register, scowl attached to his face, as he asks the first customer what they want. There's something to be said about his customer service.

Bellamy nudges her.

"Showtime," she mutters low under her breath, pushing Bellamy out of the booth slightly. He laughs a little, waits for her to get on her feet before he makes his way to the counter, Clarke following behind him. There's a lady in front of them, but the rest of the bakery is fairly empty, just a few other patrons minding their own business or grabbing some napkins to go.

Whatever name used to be on his nametag is scratched out, replaced with an angry, spiky MURPHY above it and Clarke can see Bellamy raise an eyebrow at that.

"What can I get you," he asks, says flatly. He looks expectantly at the two of them, the expression on his face clearly trying to get them to move along.

Bellamy taps his fingers on the counter, pretending to think. "We have some questions."

"If you have some time," she adds. Murphy's eyes narrow slightly at them.

"What?" It's not a question. He lets out an exasperated breath. "We don't have any jelly donuts today, stop while you're behind. If we did, they'd actually _be_ here so –"

Cutting him off, Bellamy tries to smile at him. Clarke thinks it looks more like a grimace. "It's not about the jelly donuts."

"We don't give out extra jam packets –"

"It's about the fire on Wednesday," she says quickly, before he and Bellamy decide to play a round of two different conversations at once. She had been hoping for a reaction, something in his face that would give away – Clarke hoped – his guilt. There's nothing, not even a flicker of emotion across his face. He doesn't even _blink_.

"And?"

Refusing to be thrown off guard, she keeps going, "What do you remember from it?"

Murphy sneers at them. "Why?"

"Because we're curious," she says, trying not to roll her eyes.

"Then you'll be curious for the rest of your life."

"Look," Bellamy cuts in, leaning across the counter. "It's just a question."

"Why are you _curious_?" Murphy taunts.

"Bad habit," Bellamy says. "I heard you were in the kitchen when it happened."

"You journalists or something?" He asks, undeterred from his reticence. She catches Bellamy flexing his fingers.

Hastily, she answers, "Yeah. We're writing a story about it. Can you give us a few quotes?"

"What do I get in return?" His beady eyes dart down slightly, leering at her chest.

It's a feat to not recoil in disgust as she deliberately steps back slightly and crosses her arms. "You'll get your name in the paper, in a front page story," she offers instead, proud that she keeps her voice controlled.

Bellamy's not so successful. His voice is dangerously hostile when he says, "If you're lucky." Clarke reaches blindly for the sleeve of his shirt, tugging at it. He tries to shake her off, but she holds on.

Murphy thinks about it, although it feels more like he's just waiting them out. Her impatience kicks in. "As much as I'd love to be famous," he drawls, slight smirk on his face, the only change in expression this whole time. "I think I'll pass."

Bellamy starts forward. "That doesn't make you sound–"

" _What_ is going on?" A voice demands behind them. "Who the hell are you?"

Clarke turns around at the new voice, forgetting that she's still holding onto Bellamy's sleeve so they get caught up for a second before everything is sorted. A woman, a little older than them, with a sharp face and an imperious manner is standing there, arms crossed. Her name tag reads ANYA.

"We're ordering some donuts," Bellamy says, as though Anya hadn't actually caught them doing something different.

"Then I suggest you order them instead of harassing my employees." It's not a harmless suggestion.

"Right after a question or two."

" _Now_ ," she says before walking away.  Clarke groans inwardly, looking up at Bellamy in annoyance. _Thanks a lot._

He shrugs, intending on going back to probably shake Murphy down or something, but Clarke grabs his wrist, tugs him after her as she tries to intercept Anya. The least they could do was explain.

"Hi, um, Anya," she starts, as the other woman stops and raises one perfect eyebrow at them. Bellamy stands beside her, arms crossed. "We're sorry about that. We just heard a few things about the fire and wanted to…"

"From who."

"What?"

"Who did you hear 'things' from?"

"I…" The way Anya looks right now, Clarke absolutely doesn't want to throw Monty's name in. He had said she was okay with it, but that's not what she sees right now. Bellamy, thankfully, is similarly tight lipped. "I can't tell you that."

Anya mouth twitches in displeasure until she groans quietly. "Green was _serious_ about that?"

Clarke perks up at the mention. "He said he brought it to you."

"And that you were fine with it," Bellamy says.

"I thought he was _joking_."

She falters, sharing a look with Bellamy to figure out what to do next. "It's not an impossible idea."

"He looks guilty," Bellamy concludes, derision evident.

"That's just his face," Anya says blankly, matter-of-fact. She's not _wrong_.

"Still–"

"I don't know who you two are and frankly, I don't give a shit. Green's a good employee so I'll let you off the hook this time." Her tone is withering even as she delivers the words with a neutral expression. "Don't ever come in here to harass my employees again." Once again, she starts to walk away as soon as she finishes her command and Clarke tries, she does, to bite back her words, to stop herself from arguing. But she hadn't actually given them a chance to explain their side and it wasn't as if Murphy hadn't been _just_ as bad in their exchange.

"But –"

Bellamy places a hand on the small of her back, guiding her back to their booth. She lets him. "We should go."

" _Why?_ "

"People are staring," he mutters out of the corner of his mouth, ducking down closer to her so they can talk quietly without anyone overhearing. He means the other employees; Monty looks mortified, Octavia looks away, Murphy gleeful.

"So?" She asks, almost defiant if it hadn't been overshadowed by the embarrassment she felt about being yelled at in public.

"So let's leave," he insists.

She purses her lips. "You want to give up on questioning Murphy?"

His jaw clenches and Clarke has to tear her eyes away, scooping up her bag. "I want to punch his smarmy face in," he says, the offhand manner contrary to his obvious irritation at him. "But I can do that another time. Let's regroup first."

She laughs at that, a small chuckle that breaks through the tension. "Okay." She rubs her eyes, tired despite the coffee she's consumed today. "Do you want to come over?"

His eyebrows shoot up, his eyes widen. "To your place?"

She blushes as she rushes to explain, "Raven said we should all catch up."

"Oh," he says, rubbing the back of his neck. "Uh, sure. Tonight?"

"7? I'll text you the address. It's game night."

His answering half smile is a little weak. "I'm very competitive."

"I _know_ ," she teases, slinging her bag across her shoulder. "But so are we."

"Bring it on."

They take the long way around, making sure to stop by the front counter – Anya's not around, so it's fine – where Murphy stands, bored and vacant. When he sees them, he grins, vicious.

"Sorry I couldn't provide a quote!" He says with a mocking frown.

Bellamy rolls his eyes, knocks his knuckles against the display glass. "This isn't over," he warns.

Murphy smiles, smug and goading. She knows she's not imagining the malice in it because Bellamy tenses up too. "You're not talking to the right person," he says, and then Anya appears out of nowhere and they don't have the chance to ask him what he means.


	2. middle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2!

The doorbell rings at 7 on the dot and when she opens the door for him, Bellamy is standing there in a thin, worn blue shirt that looks great on him and her heart flutters when she sees that he's back to his glasses. She probably has a problem. His face is caught in motion – like he had been in the middle of rehearsing a speech. He clamps his mouth shut immediately.

"Hey," she greets, waving him inside. "You're early."

"It's seven."

"Like I said, early." He laughs as she closes the door. "Raven will be home soon. Are you one of those guys who wants tours of people's houses?"

"Only if it inconveniences you."

"This is the coat rack." She gestures to it as he pulls a face at her. But she takes him around the house quickly, pointing out her room, Raven's room, the storage closet that holds most of Raven's assorted things, bathroom, living room, and finally, ending up in the kitchen. "Do you want something to drink?" Her head is stuck in the fridge, trying to find something in the mess it's in, so there could be a possibility that she just didn't hear his response so she tries again, but this time, she knows he's not answering. She turns around, the question on her lips, but finds Bellamy standing on the other side of the counter, a book – his book from when she had tried to finish the last few pages this morning – in hand, face incredulous.

"Bellamy?"

He looks up. "My book?"

"You're surprised?"

"I…yeah." Confused too, judging by his face.

"You're a _New York Times bestseller_ and you're surprised?"

"I don't know how that happened," he confesses, still clutching the book.

" _Probably_ because it's really good," she says, with no room for argument. "You wrote a _mystery novel_." He's staring so hard at the counter that she knows he's embarrassed.

Finally, he looks at her, disbelief still lingering in his eyes. "You like it." It's definitely a question.

"Of course I do."

"Really?"

"The part where Olivia is crawling through that tunnel trying to outrun the hitman? I was freaking out. Honestly, one of the best books I've read in awhile."

"Are you fucking with me?" he says, a slight edge to his voice.

Trying to keep the hurt out of her voice, she crosses her arms defensively. "You think I'd do that? You're a great fucking writer, I wouldn't lie about that just to appease your feelings."

Bellamy takes a long time – or it feels like it – to answer, fighting his disbelief and his doubt. She knows that she shouldn't take offense to it because of Bellamy's barely concealed self-doubt, but she can't help it.

The disbelief doesn't go away completely, but he does look repentant about his accusation and bolstered by what she's saying. He sets the book down, heaves out a shaky breath.

"I'm sorry. It's just. So weird still."

"It's fine," she says, a little testy. She clears her throat, back to a friendlier, softer tone. "It must be so weird."

"Completely weird."

"You'll get used to it."

"I wouldn't be so sure."

"I'll take those chances though."

Bellamy locks eyes with her, lets out a breath of laughter, ducks his head. "Thank you," he says, and he sounds so viscerally grateful in those two words she almost shivers.

"Anytime," she says, nonchalantly but she hopes he knows she means it. The next thing she knows, Bellamy's adopted an easier stance, clearly more comfortable than he was a few minutes earlier. She takes it as a sign he does. "So, drinks?"

***

Game night is first and foremost a chance to get drunk and blame everyone being a sore loser on the alcohol.

Bellamy's got both parts down pat.

She hadn't been _nervous_ about him coming over, per se, but game night changes people. Raven gets louder, starts calling for a referee that they don't have and Clarke is a really, _really_ bad loser. When they have Monty over, he gets intensely belligerent. Harper gets twitchy. And she knows that if she lost a game to Bellamy, it would be even worse. She's not sure their friendship was at that point yet. But he fit in well, argued whenever he lost a game (he was _really_ awful at rummy), endured Raven's Q &A about what he'd been doing with his life, and had also ordered Chinese, which was really the most important thing.

Curled up at the end of the couch, Clarke feels content, if a little tipsy, watching the guy completely choke on Wheel of Fortune. This is why she can't watch game shows. Raven's passed out in her room, like clockwork after a Game Night.

The couch dips by her feet and she lifts her head to see Bellamy carrying a beer bottle and sighing into the comfort of the couch. The collar of his shirt is a little stretched out. Blue looks really good on him.

"Hey," she says, a bit sleepily. She always gets tired when she's been drinking.

"Hey," he says back, tapping her ankle with his bottle. They both watch the lady gesticulate in an attempt to calm down. "So Murphy definitely knows something."

"Or he's playing with us," she points out. She's not sure which one she believes yet.

"Could be," he says, albeit begrudgingly. "But let's say I'm right."

"You know I'll never say _that_ ," she jokes, and he flicks her ankle so she digs her toes into his thigh. His grimace is reward enough. "How serious do you think he was when he said we're talking to the wrong person?"

"He knows something, Clarke."

"Maybe. But does it mean he actually knows who did it, that he's involved in it with them? Or is he just having some fun, whatever the hell it is?" This is why she hates cryptic messages.

"I don't know," he answers, frustrated. "I don't know enough about him to tell if he's lying."

She makes a noise of agreement. "We need a way to find out what happened that day."

Bellamy takes a minute to think, absentmindedly resting his hand on her ankle as he does so. She doesn't move from her spot. "Except it could have started earlier than that day."

"What if we talk to the other employees? See what they have to say."

"Octavia didn't notice anything and neither did Gina. I guess we could check in with Harper and Fox to cover our bases, but I don't know if that'll do much."

She raises her head a little to gape at him. "How do you know all their names already?" It's been a little over a year since she moved to Arkadia and she still doesn't know half of the employees at Anya's. In her defense, she doesn't stop by much. She has coffee at home and she's hard pressed to name any difference between regular store-bought donuts and the bakery's donuts.

"Well, I've talked to them."

"So have I!" With Harper. And Monty, obviously.

"I _like_ talking to them more than you do."

She opens her mouth to protest, to tell him he's wrong, but closes it when she realizes he's right. Bellamy gets drawn into conversations easily with people, and while Clarke is great at minimal small talk, she hates diving into actual conversation with people she doesn't know. Still, "I could do it if I wanted to."

He sets his beer on the table. "Yeah, but you would never want to," and he's right again. "Don't worry. That's why you have me."

"I wasn't worried," she says, trying to sound disgruntled, as if she doesn't feel the corner of her mouth trying to inch upward. The TV distracts them for a few minutes, the commercials filling the silence.

Almost out of nowhere, Bellamy says, "The police were there."

"Yes… they were," she says slowly, sitting up slightly now, unsure of where he's going with that.

"So, let's talk to them."

She scoffs and sits up all the way, kicking as his thigh. "Yeah, we'll just walk in and ask them what they know about it."

"I have a friend who transferred to Arkadia a few months ago that could help us."

"And he'd just do it?" The idea's intriguing. She doesn't like to involve actual law enforcement in cases primarily because she's learned _they_ don't like it when _she_ gets involved in cases. It's definitely a mutual dislike at this point.

But she trusts Bellamy.

"Miller's a good guy. If we just talked to him, I think he'd want to help."

She thinks it over, but it doesn't take much to agree. It might be their best bet right now; it's _definitely_ their best bet right now. She doesn't have anything else up her sleeve, they don't have a direction to go in, and it couldn't hurt to try it. "Okay. Let's talk to your friend."

"I'll give him a call in the morning, see when we can stop by."

Clarke nods at him, catches his smile. It feels good to have a plan, even if it's short-term. They catch the end of the Wheel of Fortune episode and Bellamy doesn't leave until he accidentally jostles her awake an hour later, whispering that he has to go, and she mumbles a goodbye, shifting onto her side to watch him wave to her before he shuts the door.

***

When Bellamy's friend walks up to them, he looks vaguely familiar. She can't place him but she's definitely seen him around before, maybe passed him in the store.

Bellamy has a huge grin on his face when he greets his friend, asking him about his life and what he's been up to. They talk for a while, wherein Clarke finds out that Miller is a detective here, has been here for four months now, transferred from Mount Weather, decided to make the move with his boyfriend Bryan, and he's mad at Bellamy for not telling him he'd be here too. He doesn't have a lot to say but he and Bellamy obviously have known each other for a while now, because he asks about Octavia, about how school was, even about his book that apparently everyone in the world knew about but her.

A few minutes of standing around pass by before Miller realizes that Clarke's there too. She's not offended by it; it's kind of interesting watching Bellamy with a friend. She knew he _had_ friends, of course, because Bellamy, despite his bad first impressions and sometimes dickishness, is friendly, and kind, and the sort of person anyone would love to be friends with. Reliable, trustworthy, caring.

Miller squints at her, cocks his head like he's trying to figure out where he's seen her before. "I've seen you before."

She shoots Bellamy a confused look.

"The fire at the bakery. You were talking to your friend when I was taking statements," he explains, and she starts nodding as she places him.

"Oh, right, hi," she says, embarrassed. "I didn't – I'm really bad at –"

"This is Clarke," Bellamy interjects before she humiliates herself scrambling for a decent excuse, even though it can't really be her fault for not remembering someone she saw for, like, three seconds. "And this is Nathan, but he goes by Miller."

"It's really nice to meet you. Properly." She holds out her hand, which he takes with a firm shake of his own. It's a good handshake. Clarke respects the hell out of a good handshake. Miller takes them back to his desk, situated towards the back, far from prying ears.

"So," he says, with a knowing look at Bellamy, "What have you gotten yourself into?"

"I resent the implication that _I've_ done anything," Bellamy defends, hand to his chest in mock outrage. "How could you even accuse me of that?"

"Because you were so vague about it on the phone that I assumed that it was the usual thing, you thought something was unfair so you felt you had a duty to fix it and then you fucked it up," Miller says immediately, like he's been prepared for this topic. Judging by the ease of the responses, he is. The thing is, Miller's not wrong with his assessment. It's just that Clarke had technically started it.

As fun as it is to watch Bellamy squirm, she probably should let him off the hook. "It's actually my thing," she offers with a raised hand, and Miller turns his attention to her, eyebrow raised. His face doesn't give away anything of what he's thinking and it makes her somewhat nervous. Clarke is _good_ at first impressions, but she's not sure if it's the case here. He leans back in his seat, appraises her, and then looks back at Bellamy.

"The bakery?"

Both of them nod.

"The captain's closed the case already."

"But you did look into it before? Did you find anything?" she asks hopefully.

"Looks like a standard accident."

"There's definitely something going on here though," Bellamy insists. "You don't have _anything_?"

"I thought you decided you were gonna just write about detectives now," Miller says, but while it could come across as condescending, it isn't. He doesn't say it like Bellamy's just playing at it, like he's not serious about it. He's used to this by now, maybe even impressed. She likes him a little more now.

Bellamy throws a paper clip at him. "Got some time on my hands. Help us out here."

"Yeah, that's not going to happen. Do you actually have something to go off of? Is that what you're hinting at?"

"If you helped us out, maybe we'll tell you." Bellamy leans back in his chair, waiting for an answer with a wide grin on his face. This exchange feels familiar, even to Clarke, who'd literally just found out they were friends ten minutes ago, and Miller is unfazed and unbothered by his attempts to get him in trouble.

Finally, he gives in, albeit with a reluctant, "I'll _listen_ to you guys." Bellamy grins and catches her eye, and nudges her as an indication she should explain it so she does. She tells Miller about the fire, about Monty coming to see her about his suspicions, her recall of the other incidents that have occurred at the bakery, and about their conversation with Murphy. About their attempt to bug the bakery, which didn't give them anything good, mostly random chatter, complaints about customers, and the occasional piece of gossip (Harper has a crush on someone named Monroe, and everyone knows it). Then again, it was a long shot – if she set fire to a bakery and didn't want anyone to know about it, there's no way she would ever bring it up again. Bellamy adds details she forgets, like the way Murphy reacted, or said something, and what the other employees have told him. It's not so staggered towards their bias after that. It's a more complete story. He's good at that. He's great at that.

When they finish, Miller doesn't say anything, sitting back and clicking on something on his computer. "His statement says that he was in the kitchen that day but that doesn't give us much. Heard the fire alarm, left with everyone else."

Bellamy asks in surprise, "And you believe him?"

Miller shrugs. "I've no reason not to believe him."

" _Miller_."

" _But_."

Clarke, who's been trying to figure out anything in their interactions that would point towards Murphy's involvement, doesn't miss that. Neither does Bellamy, the way he shifts closer to Miller's desk.

He clasps his hands in front of him, looking very serious about it. Slowly – to draw out the suspense, which totally explains how he and Bellamy are friends – he says, "I might have a different angle for you."

"What is it?" She asks, trying not to sound too eager.

"The boss. Said she was in her office when it happened, but the others don't remember. Name's, uh…" He looks at his computer.

"Anya?" Bellamy provides, catching her eye with his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Clarke shakes her head immediately.

"No. She's Monty's boss. I mean, she – _owns_ the place. Why would she do that?"

"Like people haven't done that before?"

"Well, of course, but – she –" She reaches for Bellamy's arm for his help, but he looks interested in what's being said. "Look, she just wouldn't be as likely as –" _Murphy, who's clearly hiding something, who definitely knows something, who had_ said –

Bellamy picks up on exactly what she's thinking right in that second. "Murphy said," he recalls, testing the words out, "that we weren't talking to the right person." Miller leans forward with interest, his eyes wider now. "He could be lying, he was trying to provoke us the whole time, but if he's  _not_ , maybe he knew Anya was responsible for it or he helped her."

The thing is, it makes sense when Bellamy says it like that. She wants to believe that Anya's innocent because she's Monty's boss, and Anya thinks highly of him, but she doesn't _know_ her, has only talked to her once, so she doesn't know really _what_ to rule out. "You found something that pointed you towards her?"

The printer on Miller's desk starts working a few seconds later and he grabs the papers from it. As he slides the copy towards the two of them, Bellamy asks, pitching his voice low, "Can you actually talk about this to us?"

Miller shrugs and he and Bellamy have a quick conversation in their stare-off. Clarke pretends no one's breaking any potential laws. Desperate times and that drill. The papers in front of them are full of numbers with no guidance of what to make of it, but she guesses they're financial records of some sort. Anya's?

"Hers?" She asks, flipping another page, as Bellamy leans in by her shoulder to take a look. He takes each sheet as she hands them off, trying to keep the numbers in her head. Numbers that are going down each month.

"The bakery's," Miller says mildly, scrolling through the document on his screen. "Do you see a trend?"

"The numbers are decreasing," Bellamy answers immediately and Miller nods.

"Look at the drop from January to February." He points his pen at the rows in question. "And it continues from there. April was better, but it slipped again in May."

Something tugs at her memory. "They had some problems a while ago, didn't they? On the news, they said the fire had been the third incident."

"Octavia mentioned something about that. Faulty equipment or something?" The more they keep talking, the more the cloudy image of Anya being at fault turns into a distinct possibility. There's no _evidence_ , but there's a possible motive, which is a lot more than they have for Murphy, even with his attitude. There's also the potential for Murphy to still be involved, to have helped Anya in this. It makes her slightly uneasy, even thinking about this idea, going off Miller's work and a game of connect-the-dots to maybe tie Anya to the scene, but that has more to do with Monty's reaction than anything else.

"So let's say she did this, or thought of it, at least," Clarke says, setting the papers aside. "What would she gain from it?"

"Insurance," Bellamy says suddenly, blinking in understanding. She cocks her head at him and he taps his fingers against Miller's desk. "If there's some kind of insurance payout on that building, it wouldn't be impossible for this to be a working motive. Use that money to recoup her losses."

It's not like it doesn't happen, probably, but, "How is that a real thing people do, though? That's like a movie thing."

"It's not common, but it does happen," Miller answers, his tone suggesting that he speaks from personal experience.

A dark look passes across Bellamy's face, gone as quickly as it came. "We, uh, knew this guy once. Charles Pike. He owned some real estate, was sabotaging it and then filing claims to get the money from it. We found out in the end, but." He pauses for a second, not sure how to keep going. The way he tells it clearly implies that this is first hand experience for him too. "It does happen. If this is what she's doing, we need to find out."

He keeps his eyes on her, imploring, persuading, but she's indecisive. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't intrigued by the possibility, but she can't say she's entirely convinced. But it's a _start_ and, well, that's why they had decided to come here – albeit, along different lines.

"All right. We have to try." Bellamy doesn't look any happier at the prospect, which soothes her a little, knowing that he's not excited about investigating Anya, or at least, upset about the idea of Anya being capable of doing this. Just a few days ago, she had yelled at them, but it had never crossed their mind that she could be a suspect.

Sometimes, she forgets how quickly things can change.

***

Bellamy holds out a nail file in front of him.

"Think this'll work?" He asks, examining it closely before kneeling down and peering just as closely at the lock. She squats down, nudging him aside. She's prepared today.

"That'll take too long. Let me do this."

Clarke gets to work immediately, inserting the torque wrench into the lock and pressing down on the pins with the hook pick until she hears the telltale click that the door is unlocked. She's showing off a little, she admits, but Bellamy's the lockpicker of the pair and he probably _could've_ worked with the nail file, but it's the first time he gets to see that she's not _terrible_ at it now, so she _has_ to show off a little. Plus, this is faster, and there's no excuse to waste time, even with no one at the bakery.

She does forgo a self-congratulatory bow, though, in favor of scowling at Bellamy's unconcealed shock. "Don't look so surprised."

He walks in first, holding the door for her until she's inside. "I'm not surprised," he says, looking around the kitchen. "Can't you tell this is my impressed face? I'm impressed." He does sound like he is, so she's satisfied.

"Looks a lot like your surprised face."

"Guess you don't know everything about me, huh," he teases. "Have you been holding out all this time? Did you take a class? _Are_ there classes for it?"

She shrugs, finally reaching the door off to the side that Monty had identified as Anya's office. "I had an ex girlfriend who taught me how to pick locks, _while_ telling me I was doing everything all wrong, so if you were wondering, spite motivation really works wonders." Ignoring the raised eyebrow, the sign that Bellamy knows there's a story there and doesn't want to push her for it, but is still curious about it, she tries the door handle, and it's miraculously unlocked.

"She's not even trying to hide anything," she muses, pushing open the door to reveal a tiny space, not more than a standard closet-sized area, that functions as Anya's office. A desk sits in the middle and a cabinet to the left, but that's the extent of it. It feels more like a storage closet than a working office.

Bellamy walks to the desk, picking up some paper. "Can you actually think of anyone looking for things she could be hiding in here?"

"Besides us?"

"Murphy could."

"I thought you were on his side now."

"I never said that. I'm going to look through the cabinet."

"Got the desk." Clarke crouches down and pulls out one of the desk drawers. Just miscellaneous supplies – a stapler, half used roll of tape, pens and pen caps, dust bunnies gathering in the corners. Bellamy moves on from the cabinet, finding nothing of consequence, and squats down to the drawers on the other side of the desk. She doesn't want Anya to be guilty but she's also sick of dead ends. It's hard enough trying to figure out a plan when there's actually something to look into, never mind how hard it is to go back to square one.

"Hey," he says, confused, considering.

"Yeah?"

"Have you heard of the City of Light?"

It doesn't ring any bells. "No. Why?" Peering around the chair to look at him, she finds Bellamy with a folder open, eyes scanning whatever's in it. Quickly, she gets up and walks over to him, peeking over his shoulder. "What did you find?"

"It's some contract, I think. Really long, tiny font, signatures. What the fuck is the City of Light?" He flips through the stapled packet, which seems to go on forever.

"What does a bakery have to do with that?"

"I'm trying to figure that out," he mutters, bouncing slightly as he reads. "There's a lot here, you know."

"You're reading it _all_?" There has to be at least twenty pages there.

He makes a face at her. "Do you have any better ideas right now?"

"Skim it?"

"Thanks, Clarke. Helpful."

"Look, let's just," she looks around helplessly, as if there could be something, _anything_ , in that room that would give her the answer she's looking for. Or give her an answer at all. "Here, give me that."

"We can't take this with us!"

"We're _not_!" She protests. She pats the pocket of her shorts for her phone, grabbing it and opening the camera. "The first and last page, at least."

Bellamy hands the folder to her. "The second page too." He gets up, crossing his arms as he hovers by her side. It's comforting and annoying at the same time. That they're breaking into an office and he's right there with her, but also that she can feel his restlessness coming in waves off him. They had wanted it to be a quick in and out.

"Third page?"

"I didn't get that far."

"I can't believe you actually tried to read _everything_."

"I'm a fast reader!"

"Have you seen how long this –" She stops, her thumb hovering over the screen. "Did you hear that?"

Bellamy looks around, looks back at her. "Hear what?"

She holds her arm out, body tense, straining to hear the same rustle of noise she had caught before. Had she imagined it?

"Clarke, you're –" Bellamy stops this time and his eyes widen slightly. She hears it again, a faint step, a slow step. He's quick to action, moving the chair back into place, trying to grab for the folder at the same time as she tries to take last minute photos. He wins out, and says in a low, frantic whisper, "I thought no one was supposed to be here today!"

"No one _was_ ," she insists, also as quietly, as frantically. Monty had promised; Sundays were closed for business and everyone stayed out. She reaches for the folder back and Bellamy shoots her an exasperated look. "We _need_ this!"

"We _need_ to go," he says, and he's right, she knows he's right, but they have something _right there_ – there's another step, and her mind is made up, relinquishing the folder. Bellamy shoves it back into the drawer, shutting it, sounding more like a loud _slam_. But there's no time to dwell on that, darting towards the door, Bellamy waving his arm to usher her past him. It's a blur of movement, of the door closing behind them, just as loud to her ears as the drawer was, of Bellamy behind her.

Clarke doesn't let herself think about anything else but getting out the back door until she is, until she registers her sharp breaths, until she realizes that she's pressed against Bellamy, his arms tight around her as they catch their breath against the wall. She doesn't move, doesn't do anything but listen to how fast Bellamy's heart is beating, feel his breath against her hair.

"Are we safe?" Her words are muffled by his shirt, and she turns her head away from the door to face the exit of the alley. Bellamy follows her movement.

He waits a beat. "I think so."

There's no use in waiting out whoever is inside right now and she's antsy enough without tempting that fate. "Okay, let's, uh, I need my arms back," she says, going for light and breezy, although the ensuing blush doesn't really make it land. He drops his arms immediately, one hand pushing his glasses back up on his nose, and he would've stepped back if there was any room for him to step back. Without thinking about it, she grabs his hand, cuts off his mumbled apology. "Let's go."

***

As soon as they get to her car, parked a block away, she does what she does best: pretend they didn't almost get caught and that her heart isn't pounding too fast for comfort. The best way to do that, like always, is to focus on business. Bellamy barely has his seatbelt on before she turns to him.

"We need to figure out what the City of Light is."

"We will."

"I'll take a look at the pictures I was able to take tonight and see if I can figure out what they say."

"Clarke."

"And I need you to just see if there's anything online about them. A website or something?"

Tiredly, voice raised, " _Clarke_."

" _What_?"

"We just broke into an office and almost got caught. I think we deserve a break first."

"I'm fine."

"Clarke."

She hits the steering wheel in frustration, Bellamy's smooth composure impossible to deal with. "If you don't want to help, then you don't have to!"

That gets a scoff out of him, loud and offended. "I never said that."

"I get it, okay? It was supposed to just be a quick thing, but I dragged you into this mess and now it's like an _actual case_ and we almost got _caught_ –"

"You didn't drag me into anything," Bellamy cuts in. "I'm here because I want to be, because I'm curious too, and I want to know what the fuck is going on."

Except that it had been _her_ willingness to listen to Monty's theory, _her_ curiosity that thought it couldn't hurt to look into it, _her_ idea to get involved. "If I hadn't called you that day, you wouldn't even –"

His hand envelops hers, clutching tightly around the wheel as she glares at the center. His hand is warm. "No. I make my own decisions, Clarke."

She squeezes the wheel tighter but his hand just follows hers, his thumb caressing, coaxing it to let go. "But I'd get it. If you just stopped here." She doesn't want to look at him, doesn't want to see whatever she'll find in his eyes.

"Clarke," he says sharply, almost berating. His tone immediately softens. "I'm with you."

She lets out the breath she doesn't know she's holding. Up until that moment, she hadn't realized that she'd been seeking that affirmation of teamwork. She hadn't realized that she had _doubts_ about him wanting to work with her. It was one thing to look around a bakery, even to question someone because they had no clue what they would uncover, _if_ they would even uncover anything, or how serious it could be, but now that it's past the point of innocent curiosity, that there's at least some possibility that there's malicious intent, ruling out the declaration of an accidental fire, involved, the stakes are a little higher. And it's not like she had never had close encounters with getting caught before but – yeah, she'd been hoping Bellamy would still say he was in.

Her hand unfurls from its grip and she finally takes a look at him. Most of all, he looks exhausted, but the smile he gives her is genuine, supportive, and maybe it is selfish to an extent, but she's so glad Bellamy's in it with her.

***

Raven's never heard of the City of Light, either, and while Clarke didn't necessarily expect her to, she generally expects Raven to know everything there is to know about everything, so it's sort of a bummer.

The weirder thing is that Bellamy finds nothing online about the City of Light. Well, nothing isn't technically accurate. Paris is known as the City of Light. There are a few books that pop up. As he got deeper into the results, he found lists of cities, nicknames for cities, and – inspiring a seven-text rant – a fan site for Thomas Edison, who is apparently one of Bellamy's historical enemies. She still saves the link he sends her, though, because annoying Bellamy with his historical enemies is one of Clarke's top five favorite hobbies.

But finding something that connects the – _a_ City of Light – the non-Paris, non-Thomas Edison related one – with a bakery in Arkadia is impossible.

"Maybe they're just not online," Raven points out from the kitchen table, where she's putting together a puzzle. Every few weeks, she likes to do one because she claims it helps her exercise her brain.

"Nothing about this case has gone according to plan. It's like one step forward, five steps back." She groans, flopping into a seat next to Raven slumping forward to rest her cheek on the table.

"That sounds like giving up."

"It's not. I'm just… _saying_ that I didn't really imagine it to be like this."

"Shouldn't you be glad? All these complications mean you get to spend more time with Bellamy."

"Still not what we do on cases," she says, following it up with a glare, although the potency of it has really dipped since the beginning. Every time she's come home from working on the case with Bellamy, Raven has greeted her with a comment about him. It's gotten worse because she made the mistake of telling Raven about Anya's office, nearly getting caught, and including the detail about how she had been pressed up against him as they waited. It had just slipped out, like it had been on her mind, except it _hadn't_ – thinking about it once or twice that day didn't _actually_ count, not when she was just recalling the events of the day.

"It's what you _should_ be doing, though," she says with a smirk before tugging on Clarke's ponytail. She swats at her hand and misses.

"We have more important things to do. Also, it's not like that."

Raven doesn't even disguise her insincerity. "Yeah, yeah."

"Let's talk about you. How's your life? Did you fire Sterling yet?"

"He learned how to hold a wrench the other day."

"So you're not firing him?"

"No, I'm definitely firing him, but at least he got something out of his time here."

Clarke laughed until her ringtone interrupted her. "Hello?" She answered, forgetting to look at the screen.

"Hey." Bellamy's unmistakable low rumble comes through. Raven raises an eyebrow. _Bellamy_ , she mouths, something that she regrets immediately when her smile turns smug. She tries to ignore that instead, facing away from her.

"Is something wrong?"

"Does something have to be wrong for me to call you?"

"Not really, I guess."

Raven nudges her, chortling to herself. She tries to flap her hand behind her but that only makes Raven double down. Finally, she gets up and flicks her in the shoulder, walking towards her room. "What's, uh, what's up?"

"Just wanted to take a break from staring at my laptop screen."

"You don't have to keep searching all day."

"Yeah, I kinda gave up on that for now."

"What are you doing?"

"I was staring at a Word document."

 _Ah_. "Did you at least type your name?"

"I didn't say it was a _blank_ document."

"So a title too?"

"Untitled Manuscript #2."

"You need an adjective."

He laughs, a sound that makes her chest tingle. "I'll add that as a comment: _more adjectives from CG_."

"Do you need more tips? I have a bunch of them."

"Yeah, I don't think my ego can take all that right now."

"That's a first."

"First time for everything. Hey, uh –"

The doorbell rings and she automatically heads towards the door, nodding at Raven, who seems to have calmed down finally. "Sorry, hold on," she says to Bellamy.

"–okay if I stopped by?" She opens the door at the same time he asks and ends up laughing into the phone, grinning at his sheepish smile. He waves at her, hesitantly, and she waves him inside.

"Hi," she says.

"Hi. Uh, like your scrunchie."

She reaches back to touch it. It's red today and it matches her shirt. "You're very weird about them."

Bellamy wrinkles his nose at her. "It's just nice to see that hasn't changed about you."

Oh. A smile tugs at her lips but before she can say anything, Raven yells from the table. "Who is it?"

"Hey, Raven," Bellamy says.

Raven turns around, looking between the two of them. Clarke gives her a look –   _don't start_ – and thankfully, miraculously, she holds off on any laughter or comment.

"You're here again?"

Dryly, Bellamy points out, "Weren't you the one who wanted to catch up?"

"And we _caught_ up. It wasn't a recurring invitation," Raven explains.

"Don't mind her," Clarke says, pushing Bellamy towards the kitchen to avoid Raven's snickering. "She doesn't _actually_ mean that."

"I know," he says, amusement on his lips. "Don't worry about it."

"Aside from wanting to bruise your ego, what brought you here?"

"I was in the neighborhood?"

"Right," she says skeptically. "Wanna help Raven do a puzzle?"

He grins easily. "I thought you'd never ask."

***

They don't find out anything about the City of Light but she does get to witness Bellamy's all-consuming love for puzzles. Which, if she thinks about it, is the least surprising thing she could discover about Bellamy.

***

The call comes at half past two. It serves her right for being lulled into complacency, to have been sure that they could take their time with the case, to be distracted by other things.

"There's been an explosion, I don't –"

Monty's voice is barely kept together, shaky and scared. Clarke bites her lip so hard she draws blood before she speeds to the bakery.

***

She practically barrels past a group of paramedics in her quest to get to Monty, who sports a bandage on his chin and an arm in a sling, but seems to be fine apart from that, since he's able to talk to the paramedic attending to him. Clarke stutters on her relief and has to restrain herself from flinging herself at Monty so that she can be absolutely certain he's okay.

"Hey," she says instead, sniffing slightly as her throat constricts. Letting out a breath, she waves at Monty.

Her focus is on the sling. "What _happened_?"

With the okay from the paramedic, they move somewhere less crowded, less noisy, and he tells her, hands shaking and voice wavering, about how one minute, business was going as usual, and the next, there was a loud whine from the kitchen, followed by an instantaneous explosion that had broken through the wall separating the front from the back. The force of the explosion had flung him back. He doesn't know how bad it is, but there's no way the bakery will be able to stay open for at least a few weeks, maybe even a few months.

There's a numbness as she listens, unable to process everything at once. She's worried about Monty, about the others ( _Octavia, was Octavia here today, does Bellamy know_ ), wondering what the explosion means, what caused it, _who_ did it, _why_ , if it's Anya, if it's Murphy, if it has anything to do with the City of Light. The paramedic takes Monty back to check on his injuries and she squeezes his hand before he goes. In lieu of a hug, that's all she can do.

She's not ready to leave, but she needs to get away from the paramedics and police officers and firemen. What she really wants is a place to think. To figure out how the fuck this factors into the equation now. To call Bellamy, find out if Octavia's okay, to see him and talk to him.

Something finally goes right for her because Bellamy marches up to her a few seconds later, all panic and agitation. He's frenetic in his concern, his eyes roaming over her to make sure she's okay, and it's only after her third, "I'm _fine_ , I came because Monty got hurt," that he calms down enough to carry on a conversation.

They sit down on the sidewalk a ways away from everyone else. "Did you – is Octavia okay? Was she –"

His jaw clenches and he scowls. "She was caught in it, but she's – I mean, she's got a sprained ankle and cuts on her face but she's _fine_ , I guess."

"We should, you should be with her," she says immediately, getting up until Bellamy tugs on her hand, pulling her back down.

"She sent me away for hovering," he admits, finally some levity in his voice and posture. "They said she would be okay in a few days, so I'm just gonna –" He shakes his head. "Lincoln's with her right now."

"The firefighter?"

"Yep."

It clicks together. "You know that's why she didn't want you hovering around her."

"I kinda got that eventually." Bellamy stares at the chaos in the center of the square. "Jesus, how did this happen? O said the kitchen is nearly destroyed, and they're fucking lucky that no one's dead. Did you know," he turns to her now, perplexity written all over his face, "Murphy's the one who's worse off? Supposedly, he was in the kitchen when it happened, he's got a huge gash, some burns, and a concussion."

Her eyes widen. _Murphy?_ "Is he going to be…"

"They think so."

"Oh my God," she breathes. It was never supposed to _be_ like this. A small attempted fire wasn't supposed to lead to this. They were supposed to have figured it out by now. A dark voice whispers inside her head, _it was supposed to be Murphy_. "Do you think – it was _meant_ for –"

"I don't know," he says. He doesn't say anything else, but Clarke knows that both of them are contemplating the same thing. If it was meant for Murphy, then he was involved. If it was meant for Murphy, then who was behind it? Suddenly, Bellamy stands up.

"Where –"

"Be right back," he says tersely. She jumps up after him, catching his arm before he gets away.

"Stop. Where are you going?"

He glares at a spot behind her and she turns around to see Anya walking past a police officer. "I'm going to talk to her. She's our only lead."

"What are you going to _say_ , though? You can't just accuse her!"

"I'll think of something, and honestly, why not? She has to know something, this is _her_ bakery."

"Because we don't have _proof_ that she knows anything beyond a conjecture."

"Like that's ever stopped us before."

"Bellamy, think this through."

His glare is redirected at her, the lines around his mouth tense. "I _have_. Octavia was hurt today. Monty got hurt today. Murphy is hurt." He counts them off on his fingers. "That's three people, three of _her_ employees, who knows how many others, and there's no way she's clueless. I'm gonna get her to talk." Bellamy's intensity is always a sight to behold and she should've expected it the second she heard Octavia had been hurt, but he couldn't just confront Anya without any idea of what to say.

"And if we don't approach this right, if she's actually involved in this, more people might get hurt. _You_ might –" She shakes her head. "We… let's mention the City of Light. See if she reacts."

"I don't like this."

"If it doesn't work, you can accuse her all you want."

They catch Anya right as she's finished a phone call, hidden under the cover of a fire truck. Bellamy's fury is palpable next to her and Anya's well practiced mask of indifference has a crack in it, replaced with a second of fear.

"What do you want," she demands, irritated.

"To talk to you," Clarke cuts in before Bellamy can open his mouth.

"If you haven't noticed," a sweep of her arm behind her, "I'm trying to put out a fire."

"Is that why you were on your phone?" Bellamy asks coolly.

"That's none of your business."

"Just seems weird, is all. Everyone who works for you is over there, and you're here, hiding?" Bellamy's pushing it too far for this early in the conversation, but Clarke's intrigued at where it might go, at whether Anya will take the bait. She could never apply the word _frazzled_ to Anya, but if there could be a time, it could be now.

"They're seeking medical attention."

"And you were just lucky enough to avoid the fallout."

"I was just _lucky_ enough that it was my day off," she sneers, ready to push past the two of them, except she and Bellamy step to the side, cutting off her path.

"This isn't helping your case," Clarke says and Anya's eyes turn on her, flashing.

She takes a few deep breaths, working her anger down. "What do you want?" Again, it's a demand, but this time, there's an unmistakable urgency in it.

"We want to know about the City of Light," she offers simply. Anya only has one tell that gives away any reaction: her eyebrow quirks up infinitesimally.

"I don't know what that is," she answers, a beat too late.

"It's really pointless lying now. We know," Bellamy says.

"Good for you. There's no reason for you to ask me about something I haven't a clue about, then."

"Anya," Clarke cuts in, before Bellamy and Anya challenge each other to a duel or something. "Can you tell us if the City of Light, whatever it is, is responsible for all of this? The faulty equipment, the fire, the explosion?"

A long pause as they wait; Clarke even holds her breath. Anya looks around, then leans her head in closer. "I think – I think so."

Clarke glances at Bellamy, the intrigued look on his face matching hers. "We need to talk."

***

Anya takes them aside, walking towards the sidewalk they had abandoned, and looks around, as if she's afraid someone is spying on them, which makes Clarke wonder if that's a possibility, and if it isn't, why Anya seems to believe it is.

Her voice is low and quiet when she starts talking. "Have you heard of the Alie Corporation?" Presumably at both her and Bellamy's blank looks, she continues. "It's a company, it deals with acquisitions."

"As in code for…"

"No, actual acquisitions. Of small businesses, mostly. They come in and they pitch you this really great deal, like they'll handle your startup costs, your insurance fees, get your name out, and when you're just starting a business, it's really fucking tempting. And the thing is, it works. They've put their support and power behind a lot of businesses who are franchising now, or they're expanding, just doing really well, and –" Anya is defensive all of a sudden. "I didn't just jump into it because it was a good pitch. I did my research, I talked to their clients, I thought about it a _lot_ – because this is – this bakery is everything I've worked for and I believed it was the best choice, that it was going to help me out a lot. And it did. I've never had problems with them –"

"Until now," Bellamy finishes. Anya nods, regretfully.

"I don't get it though," Clarke says. "Where does the City of Light come in?" Bellamy makes a noise of agreement. At least she's not the only one who doesn't get the connection. If there's a connection.

Anya rolls her eyes spectacularly. "It's some stupid name for the businesses they invest in, as if they think it's an actual community. Welcome to the City of Light, that's what they say when you sign the contract."

So they should've been looking for the Alie Corporation instead. Now all the unrelated results made sense.

Beside her, Bellamy crosses his arms, thoughtful expression on his face. "What's the deal with them wanting to ruin their – your bakery then? If they went to all the effort to woo you." Clarke snorts at his word choice, although it isn't very far off. "Unless –"

Clarke gasps, understanding his conclusion immediately. "You've become a liability."

Anya's face hardens and her words come out like steel. "We're _not_ a liability."

"We know you've been having some financial trouble," Bellamy says and one of Anya's perfect eyebrows inch up in suspicion.

"And how would you know that?"

"Valid assumption?"

"The _point_ is," Clarke says hastily, eyes darting between Anya and Bellamy, not putting it past either of them to start physically brawling at this point, " _If_ there is financial trouble, it doesn't reflect well on them. And you already think this is their fault. Did something happen that made you think that?"

"My bakery got blown up."

"Anya, _please_."

"They've been – checking in a lot these past few months, pushing for numbers and reports, which isn't something they do. They're pretty hands off about their businesses once they acquire them, but back in April, I had to meet with some of their directors and they weren't very happy about where we were going. But they never suggested anything and I figured that was it, I'd have time to turn everything around, but it's not doing well, and all this shit started happening. I know it sounds fucking crazy but there's no way these are _accidents_."

"At least we agree on something," Bellamy mutters, steadfastly ignoring Anya's death glare.

"I just don't have any proof that it's them," Anya admits, frustration bringing her closer to the frazzled state they were anticipating.

Bellamy nudges her side with his elbow and she looks up at him, hoping he's thinking the same thing she is. He is.

"We'll find it for you," Clarke promises and if she squints at just the right angle, she can pinpoint the relief on Anya's face.

***

"Okay, go over the plan again."

She takes a sip of the coffee – two sugars, courtesy of Bellamy and his memory, something that had surprised her when he handed it to her this morning – as she waits for him to go over the plan. It's not their best one, plotted out on a makeshift board propped up on her couch, but at this point, she's comfortable saying they've never been great at great plans.

"Claire and Richard –"

"We didn't agree on Richard."

"I thought I should be Richard. Richard sounds like a business owner name."

She groans. "Fine."

"So Claire and Richard, that's us, walk into an office building and ask for… you really have to be self-important to name a company after yourself, right?"

" _Anya's_. But probably," she says. "Don't say that, though." After everyone had cleared away yesterday, they sat down with Anya at a nearby diner and found out the more practical details, who the directors were, what was included in the contract, when she had signed it. After that, given the right search terms, finding Alie was easy. Unfortunately, setting up a meeting with Alie of the Alie Corporation wasn't so easy. But Clarke prides herself on not giving up (or being stubborn, one of the two), so they had decided to come down and try to get some information anyways.

"Anyways, ask to see her, hope they don't check for appointments, and when they inevitably do, go for the pity party angle."

"We just want five minutes with her, it'll be a quick meeting, we've just had so much trouble setting up this bookstore and really want her help."

"Maybe sell it a little better than that," he suggests with a laugh. "I thought this place would be a lot bigger." She had the same thought. The Alie Corporation is just a two story building in Polis, the next town over, and it's not even a big building. Somehow, it's more imposing that way.

"That's just part of their plan."

"Yeah? Their plan to take down all the bakeries in the world to become the master bakery?"

"You're so going to kick yourself when I'm right."

"I'll hold my breath in the meantime. Right after you," Bellamy gestures with a wide sweep of his arm. With a roll of her eyes, she walks inside and heads for the receptionist.

"Hi," she says, with her best polite-charming smile. "We're here to see Alie Conway." Peering over the counter, she scans the desk quickly until she spots what she's looking for – her building ID. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Bellamy rest his hand against the edge of the counter, and then there's a quick movement, perfected through experience, that tells her he's planted one of their bugs on the surface. It's new, again, thanks to Raven, who decided they needed an upgrade if they were going to take on an actual corporation this time.

"Name?" The other girl asks, bored. She doesn't even look up from her computer screen.

"Johnson. Uh, Claire. And," she sighs, "Richard." Bellamy nudges her and grins. _Smooth_ , he mouths, and she elbows him back.

"Did you have an appointment?"

Bellamy leans across the counter, sliding into his flirtatious voice. Clarke eyes him. "It's just a quick meeting. Any chance you do walk-ins?" The receptionist just lifts an eyebrow, says all she needs to say through that. Clarke bites down a laugh.

He glances over when she nudges him this time. _Smooth_ , she mouths and he shakes his head at her.

"Unfortunately," ( _Fortunately_ is what she means), "She's very busy today and for future reference, Ms. Conway doesn't take walk-ins. You really should've set up an appointment before coming here."

"There's no one around we can talk to?"

"Is this about small business partnerships?"

Clarke nods. "Then no," the receptionist shoots down. "Ms. Conway is in charge of that."

"If it's only –"

Obviously fed up with them, she interjects. "Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, would you like to set up an appointment now?"

Clarke doesn't get a chance to correct her on the assumption of their relationship because an eerily smooth voice breaks in behind them.

"Is there a problem here, Ontari?"

Alie Conway is a tall woman with long, dark hair, calculating eyes and wearing a red dress and high heels. She's very – _rehearsed_. That's the best way Clarke can think to describe her, the way she moves, the way she speaks. When she offers her hand, she doesn't miss the detached handshake or the distance in her presence.

"Ms. Conway!" The receptionist – Ontari – says abruptly, eagerly. It's the first reaction they've seen from her.

"Remember what I told you?" Alie's voice is sickly, sincerely sweet. It's a hard measure to hit.

"Right," Ontari says quickly, "Ms – _Alie_ ," (almost reverently,) "These two wanted to meet with you, but since your day is all booked up, I suggested they set up an appointment for some time in the future." Her eyes are bright and it's obvious her loyalty is to Alie, tied up in her need for her approval. It'll be hard, since they didn't make the best first impression, but they could use that for their benefit.

Alie hums, granting Ontari a smile that sates her as the girl sits back down. Everything about this is weird. Bellamy shifts his stance next to her in a way that reflects his own thoughts about that.

She turns to them. "I apologize. I really am very busy today, but if you leave your information with my assistant," she gestures to Ontari, "I'm sure she'll be able to set something up."

"We really only had a few questions," Bellamy tries. Alie smiles at them, but it doesn't reach her eyes.

"I will certainly get in touch with you as soon as possible –"

"Just five minutes."

" _Unfortunately_ ," with an edge to her voice, although it's one they have to really listen to in order to identify it, "I'm already running late for another meeting. It was very nice to meet you." It's extraordinarily insincere to her ears. "I hope we'll be able to set something up soon."

Without giving them a chance to respond, Alie nods at them and walks away, something forceful and commanding in her demeanor that persists even as her figure becomes smaller in view.

Low under his breath, Bellamy says to her, "Jesus Christ." She's inclined to agree.

"New plan?"

"Maybe if we had one."

Ontari interrupts their hushed discussion with a sharp, annoyed question. "Would you like to set up an appointment?"

"I –" And then it hits  her. There isn't a way to get in _today_ , but they can still accomplish part of their original plan. "B– _Richard_ , can you sort that out?"

Bellamy, thankfully, goes along with it, saving his confused look for when Ontari has her back turned on them for a brief moment. Clarke gestures to the cup of coffee in his hand, mimes spilling it, points to the ID hiding in plain sight. His eyebrow raise of agreement comes just milliseconds before Ontari turns back around, a calendar in hand.

She flips through the pages, clearly reveling in the opportunity to make them wait. Maybe she does deserve the spilled coffee now. "Unfortunately, Ms. Conway is very busy this month and there's no time in her schedule. You really should've called a few months ahead, especially since she'll be coordinating the big merger, but I suppose if you're amenable to – what the _fuck_ **!** " Ontari shrieks, jumping up lightning-quick as Bellamy's (most likely cold by now) coffee spills onto her hands and calendar, drips over the edge of the desk onto her lap.

Immediately, Bellamy rambles apologies, offers to help her clean up, is as overbearing as possible, and with a stormy glare, Ontari stomps out of the room. Clarke flashes him a thumbs up.

"It won't buy us a lot of time," Bellamy says, but Clarke's already on it, grabbing Ontari's ID and scanning it into the device Raven had pressed into her hand that morning. It's supposed to make a copy of the ID, or so Raven promises – but Raven's always been good with her promises.

"We'll probably be blacklisted from ever getting a meeting with Alie," she says, more amused than she should be. They really do need to talk to her sometime.

"Who knew I was so clumsy?" Bellamy mutters to her, his eyes darting between the progress bar on the screen and where Ontari had exited.

"You should really work on that."

"I keep _asking_ if you'd teach me."

"Oh, I guess since it's such a big problem for you," and they shouldn't be flirting, but it comes so naturally to her, whenever she's around him. The small _ping_ from the device rings out way too loud to her ears, although she knows that it isn't loud at all. Nodding at Bellamy, he strolls back to his original spot against the counter, rehearsed contrition painted perfectly on his face. She stuffs the device back into her bag and returns the ID. There, nothing's amiss.

Ontari returns thirty seconds later, fuming, and practically escorts them out herself.

***

"Whatever it is they're hiding, it better be worth it," Raven says a while later. At the kitchen table, she and Monty huddle over the copy of Ontari's ID.

"What makes you think they're hiding something?" Bellamy says, slipping into the seat next to Clarke. He hands her the glass of water he's been holding.

"The clearance level on this one isn't something you fuck with if you aren't serious about keeping someone out. And you said she's the receptionist?"

Clarke nods. "Her assistant."

"Still too much for one person."

"So we can't do anything with it?"

Monty cuts in. "It's not impossible, but it'll take some time. We're trying to figure out what the highest security level is encoded into this and there's no guide to it."

But Bellamy is impatient. "How long are we looking at here?"

"Blake," Raven drawls, "It'll be done when it gets done. Give us two days."

He relaxes a little, but is still tense. Clarke understands that, puts her hand on his knee, squeezing slightly. "Okay," he says, backing off. "Thanks for doing this."

"Eh, I needed a project. It's been so boring lately." By that, Raven means _you're welcome_. Monty gives them a small smile: _no problem_.

***

The flower arrangement is big and gaudy and cheap but it convinces the nurses that they're here to visit Murphy, who is recuperating in Room 231, and apparently being a terrible patient. There's a large pile of flowers and cards at the end of his bed and Bellamy tosses theirs on top of it, catching Murphy's attention, who has cuts all over his face and his leg up in a sling.

His familiar scowl greets them. "I don't remember asking for visitors," he growls.

Clarke pulls up a chair, sitting down in it leisurely, taking her time to respond. Bellamy sits on the arm, crosses his arms. He's decided on the menacing look today.

"We brought you flowers," she says.

"I have flowers."

"You can never have enough."

"I can call a nurse right now."

"Yeah, you're not going to do that," Bellamy cautions.

"Oh, I'm curious now."

"You're going to help us," he continues. She examines her nails as if she's bored with this even though it's actually pretty fun. She hasn't shaken anyone down in a few years.

"I'll bite. With what?"

She cuts in this time. "We know you're involved with this whole Alie trying to destroy the bakery schtick." To their surprise, he doesn't deny it, but he also doesn't look guilty about it. "We'll make you a deal. When we bring Alie down, we won't turn you in with her."

An elaborate eyeroll from Murphy. "And your proof is? You're pulling this shit straight out of your ass."

"Funny thing about circumstantial evidence. It tends to lead to a lot of hunches, and that leads the Arkadia police department to start digging. Do you know what we found out?"

"What."

"You've had a bit of history with arson."

"I was fifteen."

"Oh, it still doesn't take much to spin a few things, plant a few seeds, create a really _compelling_ story." Clarke stares at him and the flush of anger on his face blossoms slowly.

"You can't do that."

"I wouldn't underestimate her," Bellamy says, smiling. "People who do end up in pretty bad spots. There's also the fact that you haven't denied this, so let's just cut the bullshit and do it the easy way."

There's no telling what gets him to cave, but whatever it is, it works, because Murphy grits his teeth and exhales a, "Fine," and tells them the story of his involvement with Alie. It doesn't run as deep as they'd guessed, but he was the one who's been sabotaging the kitchen, breaking the tools, delaying the equipment deliveries, causing the ovens to malfunction, which led to the almost-fire.

"What made you agree to it?"

"She's fucking loaded. Shit, I got more for one job than I made in two months at the bakery."

"You were going to burn down Anya's for money?"

Unfazed by their disbelief, he just shrugs. "Whatever. Look, they never said I was supposed to burn it down. I was just supposed to fuck up a few things."

"So what happened with the explosion?"

He sneers at his leg. "That wasn't me." Pointedly, " _Obviously_."

She glances at Bellamy. "Getting rid of the evidence?"

"I'm right _here_."

They ignore him. "A good way to make sure he doesn't talk about it."

"What the fuck?"

"You'll probably be safe here, but I think you should look into going away for a while afterwards."

Murphy sobers up, serious. "You really think it's that bad?"

Bellamy raises an eyebrow at him. "That explosion wasn't just for the bakery. It was most likely because you were there too." That gets to Murphy, the color – although he's already pale enough as it is – draining from his face.

She only feels slightly bad that she's capitalizing on this. "This is why we need your help. We have to stop her before she does this to someone else."

After a painfully long wait, he agrees.

"Was she the one who approached you?"

"Yeah, she was all dressed up and shit too. I was out back smoking and she said she needed some help with something and I was like fuck off, I'm not on shift yet, because I wasn't, I had at least five more minutes left so I don't know how she even found me –"

"Murphy."

"So she said she needed someone on the inside to cause a little trouble for Anya, then she said she'd pay me, of course."

Bellamy clucks his tongue. "Did she say anything about why? You just _agreed_ like that?"

"It was a thousand dollars," Murphy defends indignantly. "And I tried, but all she said was vague shit like how it was going to be better for everyone in the end. I just thought, you know, batshit." He spins his finger around his temple.

Clarke glares at him. "How are we supposed to pin this on her this way? Did she say anything else?" It's getting desperate now, waiting for some smoking gun.

He thinks about it. "Not really? She made me sign something in this notebook she carried, it looked all official…"

"Did you read it?"

His blank stare is answer enough. "I didn't think it was some big _conspiracy_ like this! Also, _I'm_ the one helping _you_ , so you can fuck off with your judgement." Bellamy stomps up from his perch next to her, pacing to the door and back. They glare at each other until Clarke gets tired of it.

"We can look there, I guess. What did it look like? The journal?"

"Normal one. Brown, guess it's kinda fancy. Had a strap to close it. She had it every time we met."

That piques her interest. "Every time?"

"Yeah," he says dully, clearly losing interest now. "She probably thought it made her look official, but it just looked dumb as fuck on her." Bellamy's sat back down now, his hand on the back of the chair. She's pretty sure he's interested too.

"Anything else weird like that?"

"Not really. I can't believe that bitch tried to kill me!"

"On that note," Bellamy says, getting up, "We're gonna leave now. Thanks for your help." To his credit, he sounds almost passably thankful. Bellamy's back is turned, but Clarke's isn't, so she sees the middle finger Murphy flashes at him. She flips him off in return, pushing Bellamy out the door before Murphy says anything else to antagonize him, or he says something to antagonize Bellamy, or, honestly, she tries to fight Murphy herself.

Bellamy turns to her once they're a safe distance away from Murphy's room. "You were really convincing back there. Would you actually have followed through on that?" The threats she'd levied against Murphy weren't planned and she's so glad that Bellamy had figured out where she needed to go with it.

"Maybe if he wouldn't help us," she says, vaguely, a little wary of Bellamy's reaction.

She doesn't need to worry, though. "And that's why I never underestimate you," he says, knocking his arm against hers. A split second of hesitation precedes Bellamy slinging his arm around her shoulder, pulling her into his side. Clarke definitely doesn't hesitate to press closer.

***

True to Raven's word, she and Monty toss a new ID at them two days later with enhanced security settings that, in theory, should allow them to get into the building and Alie's office. They've all agreed on the next step: Hope that Alie is hiding the journal Murphy mentioned in her office. Find the journal that Alie is hiding in her office. Find what Alie is hiding in her office.

There's a knock on her door as she pores over the documents in front of her. Everyone's been preoccupied with their own nervous habits, Raven and Monty checking and double-checking their equipment, Bellamy frantically writing his novel in an attempt to distract himself, and Clarke looking over every blueprint, scan, and image of the building that they've been able to collect the past few days.

"Come in," she says over her shoulder, turning back to the blueprint. Alie's office is on the second floor, hidden away in the back corner of the building, and the path there isn't the easiest. If only it was a straight shot from the entrance.

"Hey," comes Bellamy's voice behind her, standing by the door, looking around her room. She realizes that it's the first time he's been in here, and that makes her put down the blueprint and stand up, leaning against her desk to face him. He takes in the pictures on the walls, the only painting she'd ever finished framed above her dresser, her diplomas next to it, her bookshelf in the corner, the pile of clothes in the other corner.  "Nice room."

"Thanks. It came with the house."

"Well, in _that_ case…"

"No take backs. You agreed."

"When?"

"It was implied the second you stepped into my room."

He scrunches his nose at her and plops down on the edge of her bed. She raises her eyebrow, but doesn't tell him to get up. She's not sure she likes anything else like she likes the sight of Bellamy Blake on her bed.

He starts to draw circles on her covers, which is a clear sign he wants to say something but doesn't know how to say it, so she beats him to it. "I'm really nervous," she admits, and he looks up, surprised.

Letting out a deep breath, he says, "Me too. Like, fucking terrified. I told Octavia about our plan and she reamed me out for it. Can't say she's wrong either."

 _Like you'd say Octavia was ever wrong_ , she thinks. "What'd you say back?"

"That I'd be careful."

"Very reassuring. Did you tell her I'd be watching your back?"

He grimaces, so she takes that as a yes. "I think she's warming up to you."

"Nice try." They fall silent, a nice silence, comfortable and warm. He scoots over just as she sits down next to him. Their legs dangle over the edge. "We'll be okay," she says. She doesn't believe it, but it's nice to hear. She falls back against the mattress, letting out a soft _oof_ on impact.

Bellamy joins her a few seconds later and if she said she hadn't imagined the two of them here, she'd be lying.

"Do you ever wish you never got into all this?" _All this detective stuff_. She turns to look at him, but he's staring at the ceiling, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Almost constantly," he replies and the blunt honesty surprises her.

"Then why do you keep doing it?"

"Well, you asked for my help."

"You know what I mean."

"Because if I can do something to stop some shitty people from doing shitty things, then I'm going to try." It's the answer she knew he'd give, but it's absolutely sincere. The best thing about Bellamy is his heart. Clarke nods at the ceiling, humming her agreement. It's not that she was _seeking_ reassurance to soothe her worries, but she's appreciative, nonetheless.

He shifts slightly so his arm is nudging the top of her head, as if he's asking permission to tuck it under. She lifts her head up and he slides his arm under; she ducks her head into the crook of his shoulder and he wraps his arm around her. Bellamy is hard muscle and warm skin and his hair tickles her forehead. She's never felt safer.

In a low rumble, he mumbles against her hair, "What's on your mind?"

"What do we do if we don't find that journal?"

Bellamy stays silent.

"And what if Monty can't disable the cameras? If Raven can't access the security settings? Everything has to go perfectly this time or we're fucked. You really think we'll be lucky enough that she just keeps her journal in her office if it's so important?"

"It's always worked out well enough for us before."

"Honestly, Bellamy –"

"We have never had perfect plans. Nothing has ever gone completely to plan before, _but_ we've always figured something out. What's so different about this that's got you this worried?"

"Why aren't _you_ worried?" She shoots back in frustration. He's not taking it seriously enough if he's not worried like her.

He brings his other hand up to her face, brushing back tendrils of blonde hair that've fallen into her eyes. Her heartbeat thuds in her ears, seems to pick up in speed. "Because I trust you. I trust Monty and I trust Raven. I trust us to figure _something_ out." His eyes smolder with intensity as he looks at her. The rush that she gets from his words, from his _trust_ , his faith in her is overwhelming; it almost makes her worries disappear.

She doesn't mean to, but he's right there, face inches away from hers, and she can't help but drop her eyes to his mouth, lingering on the scar on his upper lip and the way his mouth parts open as he notices what she's doing.

The hand on her cheek freezes.

" _Clarke_ ," he manages, low and husky, sounds wrecked through it. It sends a flash of desire through her and she moves closer –

If she leans in, she could –

The knock on the door is a clap of thunder and it snaps them out of – whatever it was, whatever had just happened – whatever had not happened. Clarke scrambles away, up off the bed, smoothing down her shirt like it was messed up in the first place. Her cheeks are burning and she doesn't look at Bellamy (doesn't know if she'll be able to without wanting to finish what she almost started) as she goes to open the door.

Monty stands on the other side, curious tilt of his head and obvious question on his mind. She pushes ahead. "What's up?"

She almost jumps out of her skin when Bellamy walks up behind her. He's not touching her but she feels like she's on fire. She wills herself to act normal – because nothing _happened_ so she has no reason to _not_ act normal.

"I found a way for us to use that trick corridor," Monty says and Clarke has to remind herself that this is a good thing. Bellamy clears his throat behind her, says that he's going to check on Raven. She doesn't stare at him as he walks past them, but if she did, she can't help where her eyes go.

***

Having a goal to work towards and a plan in motion helps ground her, distracts her from distracting herself from thoughts of her almost-moment with Bellamy. One of her best talents is compartmentalizing and she's relying on it a lot right now.

Bellamy doesn't say anything about it, but she can't figure out his state of mind. He's in business mode now, so he's focused on their plan, and for a second, she wishes he wasn't. Then, she remembers they have a job to do.

(Not, almost, maybe) kissing Bellamy will have to wait.

Raven drives them there in what she calls her Stealth Van, parking in a well-hidden area a few blocks away from the actual building. Monty's at home, monitoring the cameras, while Raven keeps an eye on everything else from the van. They have an hour and none of that time can be wasted.

Ontari's ID gets them into the building and she heaves a sigh of relief.

"We're in," she reports through their comms.

"59 minutes," Monty reminds them. She and Bellamy nod at each other.

"Are you going to keep doing that?" Bellamy asks, amused.

"Do you have a timer on you?" Raven shoots back.

"Clarke has a watch."

"Clarke's walking away without you," she tells him but he quickly catches up. The lights are off, of course, and the streetlights outside don't illuminate much of the building inside. She grabs her flashlight as Bellamy shines his ahead of them, finds the hallway Alie had retreated into after she refused to see them.

The end of the hallway breaks off into three more hallways, like it's trying to play a game on them.

"Did those maps tell you anything about which road to take?"

"Surprisingly, they didn't give much information about it. Split up?"

He nods. "Stay within shouting range."

She heads for the one on the left, Bellamy goes for the middle one. It's eerie to walk through the place like this, but she tries to focus on Raven and Monty's steady conversation in her ears and the flashlight shining ahead of her. None of the nameplates on the three offices she finds say ALIE CONWAY, so she heads back.

"Clarke," Bellamy's voice crackles through the line. "The one on the right. I found it."

***

Bellamy is staring at the door when she meets up with him. The nameplate points out their destination in gold-plated letters, glimmering in the faint light. It's hypnotizing, in a way, standing there, outside her office.

Raven's impatience drags them out of their trance. "What's happening? Did you get in? Are you lost?"

She shakes her head to clear the daze. "No, we're here. Are you sure this is going to work?" When she takes out Ontari's ID, it doesn't look as all-important as it had before.

"I'm 95% sure."

"92!" Monty adds. Bellamy takes the ID out of her hands and scans it against the touchpad on the wall, and his arm stays mid-air, frozen, while she sucks in a breath.

 _Beep_.

She exhales; Bellamy's arm drops. He looks over at her, a grin on his face. It takes her breath away. "Okay," she murmurs, "We're in." They pull on their gloves and push the door open, flip on the lights.

"Make it quick, I just switched the cameras off in her office but the hallway ones are on now, so you have to let us know when you're about to leave." With that warning, it's hard not to get right to work, scrambling around the office to search for something that might not even be there. The biggest problem is that Alie's office is huge and there's too much ground to cover with two people in a limited timeframe. Raven and Monty are interjecting suggestions of where to start, telling them to look for _loose books, anything that looks out of place, or maybe that's what they want you to think so look for something that looks too_ in _place_ , so she's trying to do all three things at once, flitting around from side to side. She even runs into Bellamy, who steadies her with a concerned look, before she snaps out of it and mumbles a _thank you_. She can't get distracted.

Twenty minutes pass by with nothing but frustrated huffs and a tick-tocking anxiety pressing down on them. It feels like they've turned over every stone, found every nook and cranny, and pulled on every book for a secret passageway that doesn't exist. They need to regroup.

When she finds something, it's entirely by accident. She wishes she could claim that it was intentional, but somehow, as she's forcing herself to ignore the rising pressure, a combination of her leaning back against the desk drawer and digging her fingers into the wood – a combination she doesn't know how to replicate – opens another, smaller drawer underneath it. The clicking almost escapes her attention until the last second and she ducks down, eyes wide as she sees what's happening.

"Bellamy," she gasps, "Bellamy, come over here, look at this, look –"

He's beside her in a flash, nearly scaring her in the process. "What is it? What happened?"

"A secret compartment or something."

"What? How'd you find it?"

"I don't know," she answers helplessly, because she _doesn't_. She just did _something_ and this happened. "But this is something, right? It has to be."

"Yeah, but – hold on, be careful," he warns, his voice louder as she ignores him and opens the second, secret drawer. She feels around the bottom for something for her fingers to grasp onto, some tangible piece of evidence that she's sure must be stashed away. instead, she comes up with nothing but air. Bellamy sees it on her face, his own falling. "Nothing?"

"No," she answers, heart sinking. She was so _sure_ that this would lead somewhere. Who had secret compartments if they didn't hide something in them? "I thought –" She stops. Pushes down. The platform dips. Another click. Bellamy's head disappears as he crawls under the desk; a few seconds later, he has a journal in his hand. "Oh my God, is this it?"

"Let's find out."

With a shared anticipation binding them together, they hover over the journal in front of them. She nods at him as he opens it. The first page, a bold CITY OF LIGHT written in neat, block letters. Finally, finally, something goes right; _finally_ , they have something.

They flip through the journal slowly and a lot of it doesn't make sense to them because it's a lot of numbers that aren't accompanied by an explanation of their importance, names – of businesses? – that don't ring a bell ( _Wallaces, Trikru, Botanical Emporium_ ), but they don't need to know what everything means to know that it's connected to the case.

"Guys," Raven says, after a long period of silence on their end. "We have a problem."

"What?" Her hand freezes hovering over the page.

"I think whatever you just did to find the journal triggered some kind of alarm. The security settings just went haywire – shit, you guys need to get out of there. Now!"

"But we're not done yet," she protests, already flipping faster through the journal, trying to find Anya's. There's no order to it and they need to find it. They can't be this close to something and not leave without it.

"You _have_ to go," Raven demands, almost frantic. Monty curses.

"A van is pulling up outside the building. I'm shutting down the hallway cameras now," he says and Bellamy takes that cue to grab her hand, to pull her out of there.

" _No_!" she shouts, panicking. "We haven't found –" Flipping faster, her eyes rove over the pages, skims them as fast as she can, _where the fuck is it_ –

"Clarke, we have to go," he insists, "we know where this is now, we can come back later–"

"No, we _can't_ , we can't because they know that someone's here now, they'll switch everything, we need –" _There_. ANYA'S PASTRIES, ARKADIA, POP. 17425, 300 CHARTER AVE. Without further thought, she rips out that page, the second page, and the third, and folds them quickly, stuffs them into her pocket.

" _Clarke_!"

In unison, Monty and Raven: "Get out of there!"

"Okay, okay, let's go," she agrees, grabbing Bellamy's hand and sprinting towards the door. She doesn't think about the drawers they've left open or how much of a mess they've made of the office, just hopes that they haven't left anything incriminating behind. They make it out of the office and reach the end of the hallway, and that's when she hears, rather than sees, the guy throw a punch that lands right into Bellamy's jaw, throwing him back against the wall. Their entangled hands are ripped apart and she moves for the guy attacking Bellamy only to hear a low chuckle behind her, followed by a hand smacking her before yanking her hair back. She cries out as he wraps another hand around her bicep and squeezes, restricting the circulation. She tries to kick at him, to no avail, and faintly, in between Raven's loud, panicked screams to _get out of there_ , she can hear Bellamy struggling with his attacker, evidently able to land a few punches of his own.

Her other arm flails in the air until its hits the flashlight she'd stashed away in her bag, thankfully still looped around her shoulders. When she finally has a good grip on it, she grabs it, swings it as hard as she can at the guy. It takes two tries until he screams, dropping her painfully hard on the ground.

"You fucking bitch!" He growls, enraged, and this time she throws the flashlight right at his face, hitting him in the eye.

"I'm pulling around," Raven hollers into her ear, and Clarke nods, nods at nothing, thinks, _Bellamy_ on repeat, whirling around until she can spot him, breathing heavily, a few feet away from her. The guy he's fighting is nowhere near done, probably has a few more rounds in him, but _they_ don't – so she yells something, yanks on Bellamy's hand as he yells at her to run – the door bursts open just as Raven pulls up to the entrance, the door of the van already open. Everything happens in a blur: Raven bellowing at them, Bellamy pushing her into the van, pulling him in after her, Bellamy collapsing on top of her, the tires screeching as Raven floors it, slamming the door shut, her heart pounding so fast and so loud she's sure everyone else can hear it, checking to make sure the papers are still in her pocket (they are), Bellamy repeating _you're okay, you're okay_ into her shoulder.

She clings onto those words as Raven drives them home, taking a complicated route to throw off anyone that could be following them, and clutches Bellamy closer.

***

As soon as they get home, Monty ambushes them with questions, asking them if they're okay, what happened, what this means, but Raven puts a hand on his arm, stopping his barrage. She heads to the kitchen. Monty looks at them with concern in his eyes, but Clarke does her best to smile at him. She's okay, but she's tired and answering questions are the last thing she wants to do right now.

Bellamy immediately collapses onto the couch.

"I'll be right back," she murmurs, heading into the kitchen. Raven tosses her an ice pack right as she steps in, catching it after a few fumbles. "Thanks," she says.

"Don't worry about it. I'm going to take Monty home, okay?"

"Are you sure?" What if Alie caught onto their trail and is waiting for them to leave? "You should probably stay –"

"I definitely lost them back at the building," she says, countering her doubts. Whenever Raven is certain, Clarke believes it. "Clean yourselves up a bit. Blake's looking rough."

Instinctively, she turns her head to look at him, but the wall blocks him from view.

"He'll be fine, though. Some ice and bandages." Raven stops in front of her, eyes roaming over her face. Then, she pulls her into a fierce hug, squeezing her tight. "And don't forget to take care of yourself," she adds.

"I will," she promises, returning the hug just as hard. It's been a long night.

After the door locks shut behind Raven and Monty, she grabs her first aid kit – stashed in one of the cabinets – and the ice pack.

She sits down next to Bellamy, whose eyes are shut – in grimace, not in sleep. "Hey," she says softly, poking at him.

"Hey," he says back, his eyes open now. "You look like shit." She snorts, tossing the ice pack at him. He catches it and winces as he settles it on his jaw. There's definitely going to be a huge bruise there.

"Look in a mirror first."

"My face is made for scars. I look great with them." He's right, but she's not about to admit that.

"Stop talking."

"Okay, doc."

She rolls her eyes but slumps back against the cushions, falling naturally against Bellamy's frame. Exhaustion seeps into her limbs, her bones, her joints. She feels herself slipping into sleep until Bellamy's soft, "Shit," wakes her.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing – just a little, it's just a little blood –"

" _What?_ " She pulls herself up and scans his face quickly, eyes landing on the blood that's trickling down from a cut under his left eye. Reaching for the first aid kit and popping it open, she asks in frustration, "Why didn't you say anything earlier?"

"I didn't know it was bleeding earlier," he says matter-of-factly, ice pack abandoned on the couch in favor of the gauze she hands him.

"Press that gauze over the cut. And stay here, I'm going to get a towel."

"Right, where would I go?"

When she returns with a damp towel, Bellamy's followed her directions and still applying pressure to it. She lifts his hand off and starts to clean the cut, wincing when he winces too. The good news is it's not a deep cut, but with the bruising that's going to develop in the same place, it's going to hurt a lot more. He stays still the entire time, keeping his eyes on her. As she puts on the bandage, she tries to focus just on the cut and not on the way he's looking at her; with just the two of them here, in such close proximity, with the way his mouth is parted open, with the way she's holding her breath, it's hard not to think about kissing him.  

She wets her lips and watches as his eyes drop down. "You… you can't just put yourself in danger like that," he says, voice huskier and rougher than she's heard before.

His hand moves to her waist.

She tries to tease him. "Who's bleeding right now?"

" _Clarke_."

"There," she proclaims softly, running her thumb over the bandaged spot gently. He grabs her wrist before it falls into her lap.

"Clarke?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I kiss you?"

Later, she'll analyze the immediate response, the complete lack of hesitation. Now, she says, "Yeah. Yes."

Bellamy smiles, big and bright, right at her before he leans in, hovering over her lips. She moves forward the same time he tries to, and ends up bumping into his jaw, eliciting a hissed grimace from him.

"Sorry, sorry," she says in a rush, concerned, hand reaching for the ice pack already, but Bellamy's hand stops her.

"It's okay," he assures her, "I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" She tries to peer closer to the bruise on his jaw, but Bellamy places his hand on her cheek, guiding her face back towards him. This time, she waits, stays still. He leans forward. This time, he kisses her, soft and sweet, and makes her want more.

His lips are slightly chapped and he hesitates to turn the kiss into something more, so Clarke figures it's her turn to make the next move. She deepens the kiss, careful to press closer without hurting him, and it's hard to kiss him the way she wants sitting side by side, so she gets up and kneels on the couch to get more comfortable. Bellamy takes the hint, thankfully, opening his mouth for her, moving his hand from her cheek to the small of her back, pulling her into his lap.

It's a flurry of movement next, her hands in his hair, nearly ripping his jacket off, giggling against his mouth as his hands wander up her stomach, grinding down onto him, gasping as he sucks a mark in the hollow of her throat, rolling her hips when he lets out a low groan into her ear. She feels warm and tingly, flushed all over and yet, still wanting more. There's too many layers between them, too little friction between them.

"Please, please," she whines into his shoulder, unsure of what she's asking for, but hoping Bellamy will know anyways.

He does because he always does, always knows what she needs. They break apart for a second so he can pull her shirt off, and Raven chooses that exact moment to come home. The door slams open, as per, and it shatters the bubble around them.

"I–" she says, breathless, and that's how Raven finds them in the living room, Clarke straddling Bellamy Blake with her shirt only halfway on, Bellamy with his hair tangled and _everywhere_ , bruise blossoming on his jaw, his shirt rucked up past his navel.

She stops dead in her tracks and takes in the scene. It's not the first time Raven's walked in on her making out with someone (and she's always apologized for the times it'd happened with Lexa), but something about this is different. Maybe it's because she'd spent so much time denying there was anything between her and Bellamy. Maybe it's because she was just caught (probably) about to have sex with Bellamy. Maybe it's because of the too smug grin that slowly appears on Raven's face as she sidles her way to her room, flashing them a thumbs up. Clarke stares in horror as Raven waggles her eyebrows at her and winks for good measure.

"Keep it down, kids," she can't resist saying. "I have work in the morning and I'm already up way past my bedtime." Her bedroom door slams shut a second after.

The house is quiet, save for the sound of their breathing, and it's then that it all hits her. She had just been kissing Bellamy and if Raven hadn't come home, would've happily had sex with him too. They would've fucked on the couch, or maybe in her bed, or against the wall – "Oh my God," Clarke says, blinking fast, tugging her shirt down.

"Wait–"

She doesn't, scrambling up off his lap, smoothing her shirt down, combing her fingers through her hair, trying to will down the flush that's still on her. Avoiding his eyes takes a lot more effort than she imagined. She stammers out an explanation, the first thing that comes to mind. "Um, it was – the moment, the heat of the moment. Adrenaline."

"Was it," he says, low but sure. It takes everything in her to keep her eyes pointed from him.

"I'm going to go to bed." She jerks her head towards the general vicinity of her bedroom. "You should stay – uh, it's really late. Just… there's blankets in the closet." She swallows hard. "And put the ice back on your jaw."

"Can you look at me?"

She does, finally, but she hates herself for being too weak to resist. His eyes blaze with fury, but also quickly concealed hurt, and dread pricks her stomach. "Let's just go to sleep, Bellamy." It's a plea, and as always, Bellamy knows what she needs. He nods tightly.

"Good night, Clarke," he says, almost dully. She ignores how much that hurts.

"Night," she whispers.

When she closes the door behind her and slumps down against the wood, she counts to twenty, waits until her heart stops pounding, and steadfastly pretends nothing had happened. They went to Alie's office, found some evidence, got attacked, drove home. They went to sleep.

She tosses the loose pages, now crumpled into a poorly folded block, onto her desk, and falls onto her bed. It takes her a long time to fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last part will be posted in a few days or whenever I come up from my mountain of reading.


	3. finish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, does this world suck.
> 
> Here's the last chapter, which includes 1) the scene that I didn't want to write so much that I just ignored the fic for half a year and 2) the scene that was the impetus behind this fic!

She decides to suck it up and face him, instead of hiding in her room all day. She made the choice, she would have to face it. It wasn't fair to him to hide from it.

He's shrugging his jacket back on and picking up his keys when she walks out, arms wrapped around herself as she approaches him. The bruises are an ugly and rich purple today, both lining his jaw and under his eye, and he looks like he didn't sleep at all – join the club – but somehow, Bellamy looks even better than yesterday and she can't keep her eyes off him. She needs to, but she can't.

Nervously, she stops in front of him. "Hey."

He meets her eyes, even offers a half smile. "Hey. I need to get home."

"Oh," she says, disappointed even though she can't be. "Yeah, you've been gone for a while. Octavia's probably worried."

"Left a bunch of messages. I forgot to text her about staying over last night."

That just brings back memories of last night, his lips on hers, his hands on her, his body against hers. She shakes herself from those thoughts. "Yeah, time to do some damage control."

"Something like that." He slips his phone into his pocket and gestures towards the door. "Let me know if you find anything in those pages."

She nods, wishing that she had a reason for him to stay. "Yeah, of course. Don't forget to keep putting ice on that."

"Doctor's orders." With an awkward wave, half up before he pulls his hand back down, he walks to the door. "I…" he begins, clutching the door handle.

She takes a step forward, almost unknowingly.

"I think we should lay low for a few days. See if Alie has any idea it was us."

Oh. "Oh. Yeah, I didn't think of it like that. But I think we could use the break."

"Cool. I'll check in with Miller about it. Just let me know if you need anything?"

"You too, okay?"

"I'll do my best," he says, and then he leaves, just like that. It's her own fault, but it doesn't mean it doesn't suck any less.

_Fuck_ , she thinks. Maybe a shower will help.

***

Much to her chagrin, a shower doesn't help. In fact, it's a pretty bad shower, because by the time she gets out, she's gotten shampoo in her eye, Bellamy's not there, and Raven is giving her a Look that definitely means they're going to have a Conversation. Better get this over with too.

After some cereal.

"I'm holding it hostage until you tell me everything that happened," Raven says when her foray into the cereal cabinet turns up nothing.

"Raven!"

"Hey, I'm not saying you can't have it, you just have to tell me about last night. And this morning? Is Blake in the shower? I can't believe you had him sleep out here. Or did he offer to? It seems like something he'd do. What a fucking loser."

"He left," she says dully as she grabs the box of cornflakes from Raven, who gives it up rather easily. "And there's no story."

She dips her spoon into her cereal bowl miserably, which does nothing to convince Raven of her statement.

"So I hallucinated that part where I walked in on you guys going at it on the couch. Which, by the way, is still public property. You promised last time."

Another spoonful of misery. "No hallucinations. Just no story. And sorry about the couch thing. It just happened."

"It _just happened_? I can't believe you're doing this. I can't believe you hate me this much. Tell me _something_. Why aren't you all giddy and sappy right now?"

She takes her time to answer, chewing extra slow on the Frosted Flakes just to see the annoyance settle on Raven's face. "I was cleaning up his cut and I don't know, one thing led to another –"

"Ah, the sexy nurse thing," Raven interrupts, waggling her eyebrows at her. "Works every time."

"It wasn't planned," Clarke bristles. "Honestly, it just happened." Except he had asked her if he could kiss her and she had said yes so quickly it was embarrassing. "And then it got… well, you saw." Blushing at the memory, she tries to ignore it by pouring more cereal.

"So you got all hot and heavy and then… nothing? He just left this morning?"

"No," she sighs. "I stopped it before it could go anywhere else and then I said I had to go to bed and he slept on the couch and I couldn't sleep at all and then this morning, he said he had to go home and I took a shower, and now I'm eating cereal."

Saying it out loud doesn't make it better either. Raven definitely agrees, if her disapproving frown is any indication, but her voice is gentle, sympathetic when she says something. "Was it because of him?"

"No," and at least she's honest about that. "It's me. And I know that's shit, and I know that everyone says it, but it just got to be too much and I couldn't handle it then. And anyways, Bellamy's just a friend."

"You almost sound convincing."

"I should, because that's all there is to it."

"You gonna be mad at me if I keep going on about this?"

"Maybe."

"Fine. But just one more thing."

"What?"

"Does he know this? Did you tell him why you stopped it?"

"Of course he –"

"Just something to think about."

"I hate when you're like this."

"Like what?"

"Like when you're right."

***

Her day gets worse because around noon, Octavia Blake storms up to the house, pounds on the door, and nearly tramples Clarke over in her quest to get inside. She means it when she says she has nothing against her in _principle_ , but she also doesn't think she'll ever like her as a _person_.

"Hey, Clarke, what's up, your house is great, I love knocking on your door and waiting for a response," she says mockingly, trailing behind Bellamy's sister as she seems to think the house is her domain.

"Save it," she says, rolling her eyes.

"I live here, Octavia. You can't just barge in like that."

" _Relax_. I'll be gone in a sec."

"Then say what you came here to say." If she had to venture a guess about why Octavia's here, all of them would be related to Bellamy. All of Clarke's interactions with her have concerned him, especially back when they were working together and Octavia was more outright with her dislike. Believe it or not, she's toned it down a little.

"Stop dragging my brother into your messes," Octavia says bluntly, cocking her head defiantly. "Stop thinking you have some duty to save the world and then bringing Bellamy along to do it."

She'll be honest: she's surprised at what comes out of Octavia's mouth. She knew it'd be about Bellamy, but she thought it'd be about their kiss(es), that it'd be her yelling about hurting him. But this? This, she doesn't expect. It takes longer than necessary to react to it, _because_ she's so thrown off by it. _Dragging Bellamy into her messes?_ "You've gotta be shitting me."

"Look at my face."

"You look like you're shitting me."

"You thought of some fucking insane plan to break into a highly secure office and now he's hurt."

"Really?" She scoffs. "I definitely can't remember helping him last night or anything."

"It'd be great if you could take this seriously, Clarke."

That's the last straw. It's enough that she's already fucked up with Bellamy, already enough that she's having a bad day because of her own problems and actions, but to have Octavia come in here and blame her for things that she's not in control of, to have her throw accusations at her in hopes they'll stick and hurt, _that's_ enough.

Octavia's always been a little self-righteous – something that Clarke respects, in a way, because she's not immune to it and works hard at keeping it in check too – but this crosses the line.

"I would take this seriously if I thought you were _actually_ being serious about this. Just tell me what your real problem is with me. I think we both know that it's not about Bellamy."

It takes her a while to answer, but when she does, Octavia juts out her chin defiantly. "You're selfish."

Whatever she had assumed Octavia's problem with her was, this was nowhere on the list.

Octavia continues, taking her shock as an unspoken approval to keep going. "It's always about _your_ problems. You think you're right, so you _are_ right, and even when you're wrong, you're _still_ right and everyone else just has to fit themselves around it."

"That's not –" she tries, weakly, unsure where her voice is all of a sudden. Was Octavia right? Was this what everyone else thought too, Monty, Raven, Bellamy? It wasn't that she never thought she was selfish, that she had never done selfish things in her life, because she grew up with the world handed to her, and still wanted more sometimes, but couldn't that happen with anyone? Octavia's still talking, but she can't focus on it, not when she's reevaluating every interaction she can think of, wondering if it's been motivated by her interests and her interests alone, if she's bulldozed everyone into going along. She takes a step back, a little dizzy.

"You think I'm being selfish in working with Bellamy?" The hurt in her voice is humiliating, but it doesn't look like Octavia notices. What she really wants to ask is: _does Bellamy agree with you?_ "How?"

"Because he _listens_ to you, he _likes_ you and he'd –"

These are the words she hears and files away for later. These are the words that tell her that Octavia's mad not just at her, but Bellamy as well, and these are the words that remind Clarke of the way Octavia is. "You know he's an adult, right?" Octavia's face tightens. "He's an adult who can make his own decisions and choose to do whatever he wants to do."

She sucks in a deep breath, suddenly fueled by a burst of anger and adrenaline that might not be a good combination. "I didn't _make_ him do anything. I've _offered_ him chances to get out and to not do this anymore, but _he_ made the choice to help me with this because, newsflash, your brother's a _good fucking person_ who thinks he has to help anyone he can. Maybe I am selfish, but you don't know a thing about this, so don't assume you do. How would you feel if I told you you were just mad at your brother and not me?"

One of her worst habits is that when she gets angry, her face heats up, and she feels it burn as she comes down from her speech. She's mature enough to acknowledge part of it is projection of her own guilt about Bellamy getting hurt – even if it's not her fault, she'll still associate it as such – and part of it is because she has a defensive streak that Octavia expertly triggered.

Surprise flashes in Octavia's eyes before settling into something hard and defensive. _Good_ , Clarke thinks vindictively. "You don't get to talk to me about my brother."

"Then don't take whatever fight you're having with him out on me," she says, cold and hard.

Eyes narrowed and lips thinned, Octavia looks murderous. Clarke doesn't know how this escalated this way but she can't seem to care at the moment. "Go fuck yourself, Clarke," Octavia says, deliberately bumping into her as she stomps past her. The door slams as she leaves, a quick rush that doesn't give her any time to formulate a comeback.

She turns on her heel and goes to her room.

***

The guilt kicks in twenty minutes later. Octavia was definitely wrong to barge into her house and start accusing her of things that weren't her fault, and hitting at her insecurities, those buried thoughts she believed but wished weren't true, but she had been just as – or more – harsh back because she was angry and tired and fed up with everything and needed someone to take that out on. She'd done the same thing Octavia had been doing with her.

"Fuck," she says to herself, pinching the bridge of her nose. She had to go apologize. But it was going to suck. Flopping back onto her bed, she grabs one of her pillows, covers it over her face, and screams as loud as she can into it. It doesn't make the day better, but it does make her feel better, even if it's just marginal.

Now, she had to take stock.

The list, typed up in a note on her phone, looks like this:

  1. Apologize to Octavia, i guess
  2. Look at Alie's journal but should wait until Bellamy
  3. Talk to Bellamy about



She gives up on the list. A list isn't going to help her figure out what she wants to say to Bellamy, to fix things between them. It's not going to help her decide what she's _going_ to say to him.

She's contemplating another scream into her pillow when her phone rings, startling her out of her thoughts. When she takes a look at the screen, she sees _Bellamy_. Out of the two choices, answering the call and not answering the call, neither sound appealing – because she _wants_ to talk to him, like she always wants to, but she also doesn't know what to say yet, and it freaks her out.

She answers because she already misses his voice.

"Hey–"

"What the hell did you say to Octavia?" Sharp and hostile isn't something she's heard from Bellamy in a long time.

"Nothing much, it –"

"What did you say to her?" He demands, although the way he says it tells her everything she needs to know already.

"She obviously already told you something about it, so what's the point?"

"The point is that Octavia just called me, upset, because you yelled at her. What the _fuck_ , Clarke?"

"Did she say anything else? Did she tell you she was the one who started saying shit about me, trying to make _me_ feel like shit?"

"What–"

"She didn't, right? Or, you know what, even if she did, would you even listen to that? Octavia Blake can't do anything wrong in your eyes." Heat pricks the back of her ears as she gets worked up about this again. She's not doing this again and especially _not_ with Bellamy this time.

"What did you say to her," Bellamy repeats coldly, like he didn't hear anything she said.

"Which time?" She shoots back sweetly, deadly.

"Can you answer me for once?"

It takes her back to Octavia's words, _It'd be great if you could take this seriously, Clarke._ Her nails dig into her pillow. "I told her that you can make your own decisions because you're an adult and it would be _fantastic_ if she could stop blaming me for every little thing that happens to you."

Bellamy is silent for a long time. Finally, he asks, "She said that to you?"

_And more_ , she thinks, but keeps quiet. She rubs her eyes. "Do you actually care?"

He's very obviously hurt by that. "Of _course_ I care, Clarke. I'm sorry I didn't ask for the full story first but I didn't think about it, I just –"

"Assumed I had no reason to yell at Octavia?"

"She was really upset."

A loud scoff, "So am I!"

Both of them are quiet. She switches her phone to her other ear and presses a hand over her eyes to stop the tears that she feels coming. She's not going to cry.

"Do you think –" comes out quiet, on the edge of a cry, before she swallows it back.

"What?"

She could say it. She could ask him if he thinks she's selfish too, if he'd actually meant it when he rejected the notion the first time. But it feels like it'd be playing into the same idea, that it'd confirm it.

"Nothing."

"No, what were you going to say?"

Clarke squeezes her eyes shut, a tear slipping out in the process. "Octavia said – I don't know, she thinks I'm selfish, that I expect you to –"

"No," he says immediately, firmly. "You know I don't think that. Clarke, I've told you before that I don't think that." She does; she does, but it still doesn't mean she doesn't wonder deep down. It's been a constant worry, even as she's made herself put it aside for now.

"I know, but –"

"I meant it. O thinks that I can't make my own decisions and wants to blame anyone else but me for the shit I get into."

She nods until she remembers he can't see her. "Okay."

"Please believe me," he pleads, his voice softer now.

"I just feel awful about it. You getting hurt."

"It's not a walk in the park to see you get hurt either, Clarke."

Finally, she laughs quietly. "I'm sorry for yelling at her. I was taking my anger out on her. Next time I see her, I'll apologize to her."

"But she–"

"Bellamy," she interjects, staring up at the ceiling. Just a day ago, Bellamy was right here with her. They'd almost kissed then too. And then they actually did. She shakes her head. "Can we talk about something else?"

However, he doesn't relent. "Do you believe me?"

"Yes." It means fighting against her instinct, against the urge to accept the worst about herself, but there's a logical part of her that scoffs at her assuming an elevated importance in everyone's lives, and a more emotional part of her that hears the conviction in Bellamy's voice and clings to it. "But can we talk about something else now?"

Bellamy makes a disgruntled noise but changes the subject. "The bruises don't look too bad."

"Did you want me to agree? Because I saw them and I don't think that's how I'd describe it."

"How would you describe it?"

"Like you lost a fight."

"Technically, we left the fight before we lost it."

"I don't think they're really concerned with technicalities."

" _You're_ not really concerned with technicalities."

"Mature."

It's easy to go along with the change in topic, and it's easy to keep the conversation going, but she's well aware that they're ignoring the elephant in the room, and every pause, audible breath, or rustle over the line makes her wonder if Bellamy's going to bring it up. She can't tell if she's disappointed or grateful that he doesn't.

***

_sorry gotta write 4 chapters by the weekend_

_Text me if you find anything_

***

Monty's not the first one who notices and he's not the first one who points it out (Raven, of course, who must be practicing her pointed looks just for this week), but he's the first one that gets her to react.

He asks, "Hey, where's Bellamy?" and she throws her bag onto the table.

"How should I know?" She growls, which earns her a startled, unimpressed look from Monty.

"Okay, hostility."

"Sorry, I don't really want to talk about him," she grumbles.

That draws a confused look from Monty. "Since _when_?"

Because she's stumbling over her words for an explanation (one that doesn't amount to _since we made out last week and haven't talked about it since and it's been weird and I want to talk to him but I can't because it's weird_ ), it comes across like a hurried excuse (it is), "I don't even talk about him that much – I just… _we_ haven't hung out, just us, in a while!"

Monty's face softens and Clarke almost breathes a sigh of relief, thankful that it distracted him, until he crosses his arms, adopting his unimpressed face again. "Nice try."

"It's true!" The waiter comes by with two menus and after they order, she sighs, resting her chin on her palm. "He's been busy." And she gets it. He has a novel to write and doesn't have time to stop by the house and sit around. He has deadlines to meet and work to do.

It's just coincidental that Bellamy's busy schedule and decreased presence happened after they kissed, because it definitely has nothing to do with that. He's _busy_ and she gets that.

Monty fixes her with a thoughtful, scrutinizing stare. "What happened?" He asks, almost knowingly.

_What didn't happen_ , she almost laments dramatically, before pulling back and glumly stirring her coffee. "We kissed."

"And?"

"And it was weird!"

"The kiss was weird?"

"No, the kiss was _great_ ," she admits finally, the word a whisper in the back of her mind the past week, but finally uttered out loud, a little wistfully, longingly. "Everything else after that was weird."

"Explain."

So she does, tells him a condensed version of everything that happened, of how it's been a week since she's seen him because she's being a coward, of how she doesn't know what it means, of how much she misses him.

He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms, surveying her. It's a little unnerving, to say the least. Monty has a perceptive gaze leveled at her, which makes it worse. Nothing good ever comes out of that look. "So your problem is you have feelings for Bellamy and you don't want to have feelings for him."

" _What_ –" she splutters, nearly knocking over her fork off the table in the process. "That's definitely _not_ – what you're supposed to get out of that."

With a slight amusement, "What was it supposed to be?"

"I." She scrunches her nose. Then, because there's no use in denying it longer, not when Monty knows, when he's right. She knows the signs, knows the fluttery signs of a crush, knows when it stops being a crush and starts being more, knows that the only reason she's acting this way, freaking out so much is because she has feelings for Bellamy. She knew it back when she stopped the kiss, felt the flare of panic meet the burst of happiness. "You're even worse than Raven," she grumbles, mutters under her breath. It's as much of a confirmation she's willing to give.

Monty laughs loudly, doesn't even bother stifling it even when some other people in the restaurant give him strange looks. "Just go see him," he says, less like a suggestion and more like an order.

"I can't," she says immediately, twisting her napkin in her hand, tearing the ends. "He's busy –"

"That's an excuse."

Indignantly, defensively, "You know he's writing –"

"I meant for _you_. For him too, but you don't want to confront all this so you're hiding behind him being busy!"

Clarke opens her mouth to protest, but finds that there's nothing to protest. He's not wrong. Bellamy is busy, but she's accepted that easily because it lets her pretend she _can't_ talk to him yet. "I can't go see him," she whispers.

"Why not?" Monty asks, genuinely curious.

"You didn't see him that night. The next morning. I really fucked things up." She rolls a torn piece of the napkin between her thumb and finger, trying not to think about the way he looked. Hurt and closed off and still pretending everything was fine.

"You don't know that."

"Yeah, but –"

"No. Clarke, you don't know that. You just think that. If you go see him and talk to him about this, it'll probably be way better for _both_ of you than this weird not-talking, avoiding each other thing."

"But it's so much easier."

He snorts, pausing to ask the waiter for some more jam. "You'll go see him?"

She'd promised Raven she would talk to Bellamy a week ago. Maybe second time was the charm. "Yes, mom," she says with a smile, before stealing a bite of his French toast.

Monty rolls his eyes. "Mean. You know your mom sucks."

"That's the _point_."

***

She kicks herself for not noticing until they've paid the bill and she gets up to go to the bathroom. She should be better than this, _is_ better than this, but she'd gotten so wrapped up in her own melodrama that she hadn't noticed the two figures lurking at a booth in the corner of the restaurant. As soon as she takes a few steps forward, there's a chill, an uneasy feeling at the back of her neck. She whirls around, eyes searching for anything that stands out. After a few years of doing this, she's learned to trust when she senses something wrong.

"What's wrong?" Monty asks, looking up from his phone back at her.

"Nothing," she murmurs, rolling a shoulder back and frowning. There's a shifting in the corner and her eyes go there immediately, locking onto a guy that doesn't look like he belongs here, like there's something forced in his mannerisms. Like he's trying too hard to act normal. Her heart rate spikes up, but she remains calm. "Nothing. I'm going to the bathroom. Be right back."

"Okay," he says, turning his attention back to his phone.

She can't give any indication that she's onto them, whoever they are, so she forces herself to walk ahead, hoping that her attempt at looking normal is more believable than the other guy's. After rounding the corner into the hallway that leads to the restrooms, she darts for the women's room, slamming the door shut behind her and barricading herself against it. There's no one else in there and after a hurried check, no windows to climb out of either, which works out for the best, because she can't leave Monty there alone.

That gives her an idea.

_Two guys, maybe more in the corner booth, v suspicious can you distract them??_

His reply is prompt, a plot twist from God. _u think theyre alie's guys?? Shit_

A second later, another text comes in. _ok ill do it but what about u_

She keeps her ear against the door in case anyone approaches. _I'll figure something out just lmk if it works?_

_Ok_

She lets out a deep breath, hand over her heart to try to steady it. A few agonizing minutes of silence pass with only the whirring of the air conditioner above her filling the space. Then, even with the door and a short hallway between them, she hears a faint clanging.

Her phone lights up: _there u go. meet u at my car?_

Now, she can actually breathe. Smiling down at her phone, she lets herself relax. _Thank you love you I owe you big!_ She waits a minute before opening the door and peeking her head out. The hallway is blissfully clear, or at least it is for three seconds before a hand shoots out and shoves her hard. The surprise maneuver gives her no time to defend herself, let alone regain her balance, but she tries to break her fall with a hand, ends up twisting it back as she falls on her right wrist, smashing it against the tiled floor. The pain is sharp and stinging, shooting up her arm as she rolls onto her back. It takes her a few seconds to grit her teeth through it, squeezing her eyes shut. When she opens them, the guy she spotted earlier is looming above her, smirking menacingly.

To her credit, she doesn't freak out right away. She uses her other hand to push herself into a sitting position, then stands up, arm cradled to her chest, toe to toe with him. Wherever this is coming from, she hopes it lasts – at least until she can figure out a way to get out of here. Her bravado throws him off and he steps back, arrogance faltering.

"Get out of my way," she says, voice steady.

"Wait a sec – what the –"

She doesn't give him a chance to finish that sentence before she barges past him, intentionally knocking the shoulder that isn't connected to her injured wrist against him, pleased that it actually gets him to move slightly. He grabs her bicep harshly and that's the switch for the anger, rather than the fear, to flood in.

"Get your fucking hands off me."

"You need to stay away from places you're not welcome to," he snarls.

" _You_ need to stay the hell away from me."

"Listen, you mis–"

"I'll scream," she cuts in, warns. How the hell this commotion hasn't alarmed _anyone_ is beyond her.

He barks out a laugh. "You can try but they won't help you." Panic cuts into her and she tries to yank her arm out of his grasp, succeeding only in making the grip tighter, enough to bruise.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she tries next. "You've got the wrong person."

"Nice try," he sneers mockingly, "but no one –"

"Hello?"

She sucks in a breath at the sound of sweet, sweet Monty's voice, the best sound she's heard all day. He takes slow steps towards them, hands out, placating. "I called the police, they said they're sending a squad over right now."

Monty, although he doesn't advertise it, is the best at crisis-management. He has a soothing voice and a clear, sharp mind, and the ability to bluff without doubt.

"The other guy that was with you," he says casually, still walking towards them, still calm, "You probably don't want to join him. So let my friend go and we'll let you go."

Clarke doesn't know if he's lying or if he's telling the truth, but just that is enough to plant a seed of uncertainty in the guy's mind because his grip slackens and she takes immediate advantage of that to tear her arm from his hand and race towards Monty. The guy snaps out of it, makes towards them, and then sirens start blaring, getting louder and louder as the seconds go by.

Monty pushes her in front of him and they run.

***

"How'd you know?" Clarke gasps as they turn the corner towards the parking lot where Monty's car is.

"I didn't," he says, looking back behind them. "You took so long so I got worried and what the fuck, what the fuck –" They reach his car and he unlocks it, both of them getting in. She hisses as her wrist bumps up against the door as she tries to close it. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she answers, distracted. It's most likely just a sprain, and even though it hurts, there's more important things to worry about. "Wait." She looks around. "Where are the –"

"I didn't call them."

"But the sirens…"

Monty taps the GPS screen and it lights up. "It's an alarm thing I created, it just needs an unlocking mechanism –" to which he holds up his phone, "And there you go."

She just gapes at him incredulously, gratefully. "When the _fuck_ did you think you would need _that_?"

"I think that's the wrong thing to focus on here, Clarke!" He's right.

"Shit, yeah, we need to, we need to –"

"Tell the police," Monty says firmly. She nods.

"Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Miller, at least. Fuck." She rubs her eyes, or tries to, before she realizes it's her injured hand. "You talk to them, I need to talk to Bellamy."

"Right _now_?"

She looks sharply at him. "They could be on their way to him right now," she says. Monty grimaces in chastisement. "Can you drop me off at his first?"

"Sure, but." He stops, looks impossibly worried. "What if they get to him before we get there?"

She looks ahead, her mind going blank at the thought. "We can't think like that. Let's go."

***

Clarke rings the doorbell five times before she gets a response, or more specifically, hears Octavia screech, "Once was _enough_ , Jesus fuck!" The door rips open a moment later, the annoyance on her face dropping to a glare.

"What are you doing here," she says flatly, crossing her arms as she guards the doorway.

"I need to see Bellamy," she says, tries to reflect the urgency in her tone in her eyes as well. She doesn't want to barge in like Octavia had done with her, but if it comes down to it, she might have to. "Is he here?"

"He's busy," Octavia says, almost delightfully.

"You don't understand, I have to see him right now."

"I don't think so. This is my house so I can decide if I want you here."

"You did the _same thing_ last – okay, I'm sorry, is that what you want to hear? I shouldn't have yelled at you like that," she says, wisely biting back the other part about how Octavia had been the one to start it. "I really –"

"Octavia," comes Bellamy's voice, quiet and stern, and both of them turn to look at him. It's not the time for this, and she _knows_ that it isn't, but she can't help but take in the sight of him, arms crossed, eyebrow raised, shirt stretched across his chest, glasses perched on his nose. The bruises have faded to a very light circle under his eye and spanning his jawline, and she spends enough time staring at him, at how good he looks, that she misses Octavia huff in annoyance.

"What's the goddamn _point_ ," she says, throwing up her arms and elbowing past her, knocking into her wrist, on her way out, with a slammed door for added effect. She doubles over slightly, wincing at the sharp crack of pain that it sends up her arm.

Bellamy notices, although it's not hard to miss. He's by her side immediately. "What's wrong?" Then his eyes catch on her arm and he sees the bruise that lines her bicep. His voice is dark, determined, _upset_ , "Who did this?"

"It's just a sprain," she says, as if that'd stop him from worrying, trying to wave him off, but also liking how close he is right now. She does draw the line at smelling him, though.

Slightly strangled, Bellamy says, " _Just_ a sprain? What happened?"

"Long story," she grumbles. "Can I get some ice?"

He nods and she follows him into the kitchen, taking the opportunity to look around his place, a smaller house than hers and Raven's, but cozy and neat, which is probably because of Bellamy. Bellamy's very neat. He fills a ziplock bag with ice and wraps a paper towel around it. Before she can say anything, he reaches for her fingers, pulling on them gently. It doesn't hurt when the ice meets her wrist and she swallows back her surprise when he curls his fingers around hers, just slightly. He moves on like nothing's happened – and nothing has.

"What happened?"

By the time she tells him everything, from the brunch (topics of conversation omitted) to the weird feeling she had gotten when she stood up to how she had sprained her wrist and finally, to her and Monty's escape, he's furious, face dark and expressionless, except for the clench of his jaw. She misses the warmth of his hand when he withdraws it to run it through his hair in agitation.

"So they know it's us."

"They at least know it's _me_ ," she corrects.

"How did they find out?"

"I think there's more important things to figure out first."

He pinches the bridge of his nose, knocking his glasses askew. It's very cute – but not the time. "Right. What did the journal pages say?"

She bites her lip. "I, uh," Bellamy looks at her in question. "I haven't looked yet."

"What?"

"I –" she plays with the zip on the bag of ice. "It didn't feel right. Without you." Not to mention that every time she'd taken a look at the pages nestled at the corner of her desk, she'd be reminded of Bellamy, and that night, and that kiss, and then it was a new cycle again. It felt wrong to look at them without Bellamy around, but looking at them didn't hold any interest for her without Bellamy there to share it with.

"Oh," he says, like that's enough to cover everything. It pulls at her, the curiosity of that response, of trying to figure out what he means by it, if he means anything by it.

But she doesn't say anything about it, just rolls on ahead. She's overthinking it. "So yeah, I guess we need to look at that first."

"Right away. Especially if they come around again –" he cuts himself off at the thought of that, a prospect that seems less like a possibility and more like a probability. Those two had found her at the restaurant, which means they could've followed her, or must've followed her, or –

"Are you scared?"

He's tired when he answers, the lines on his face more pronounced. "Aren't you?"

"Yeah," she says simply. It feels good to admit it, that she doesn't know what to do, that she's terrified about what is going to happen next. It was easy to remain calm in the car with Monty because she knew she had to pretend she had everything under control with him, but with Bellamy, it's different. With Bellamy, she can be honest. With Bellamy, she knows he'll understand.

The distance between them, not just physical, but also emotional, closes then, as she shuffles towards him and he lifts his arm up, tucks her right under it. She has to keep her wrist elevated and close to her chest so it's not a full hug, not even a proper side hug, but it feels good to be held by Bellamy, to have him right there, to feel his lips against the top of her head, his hand rubbing her back. After today, there's nothing better. After anything, there's nothing better.

"I'm glad you're okay," he murmurs, presses another kiss to her hair for good measure, or for reassurance (for him or her, she's not sure).

She moves closer, leaning into him, and closes her eyes. "Thank God for Monty."

"Seriously. I'm buying him a fruit basket. Does he like those?"

"Are there people who do?"

"I don't think I'd mind one."

"Think?"

"Well, I've never gotten one before, so I can't say for certain."

By now, the ice is now more water than ice and as loathe as she is to pull away from Bellamy, it's pointless to keep it settled on her wrist. Bellamy sees what she's trying to do and lifts his arm, takes the bag from her and drops it into the sink.

"What are you –" she starts, baffled when he starts moving around the kitchen, opening cabinets and drawers.

"Trying to find where O keeps the first aid stuff," he says, but he's distracted rummaging through the contents of one of the drawers. It's an odd moment to come to a realization, if that's what it can be called, or to decide to gather her resolve, but she watches Bellamy look for a first aid kit – for _her_ – and her heart feels full. It should be too much, it should overwhelm her, it should make her stumble back, but it doesn't. She steps forward, finds her voice.

"Bellamy," she says.

"Yeah?" His attention still on his search, he doesn't notice her walking toward him, her heart in her throat, her mouth dry. She uses her good hand to touch his shoulder in a motion for him to stop.

He looks up.

She leans forward and presses her lips against his, shying away from deepening the kiss, eyes fluttering shut before she breaks the kiss and opens her eyes.

Because she didn't give him time to react, he's frozen in the same position, mouth open slightly, eyes unfocused. She bites her lip and steps back.

"What was that?"

"A kiss."

"Why?"

She snorts. "Because I wanted to kiss you."

"Wh–"

"Bellamy."

He shakes his head out of a daze, a frown marring his face. It's not the reaction she wanted and it's definitely not what she wants to see after she kissed him. "That night – you..."

"I freaked out," she says, cutting him off before he struggles further for words. It's weird seeing Bellamy at a loss for words. "I freaked out because I was scared. Of… everything, of how fast everything was happening. I didn't know how to handle it. I'm sorry."

"I didn't mean to scare you like that," he says. "I, if I knew that you didn't, I wouldn't – I wouldn't have –"

In a sort of challenge, she says, "You wouldn't have kissed me?"

"Yeah. _No_. I don't know. What do you want me to say?" He's clearly frustrated now, and it sets her at ease. Frustration she can deal with. Remorse over something that wasn't his fault isn't.

"What do _you_ want to say?" She fires back, wishing she could cross her arms. She settles for a hand on her hip, although the effect is lessened with her other arm cradled to her chest.

"I've wanted to kiss you since you threw that mug at Collins' face."

"He deserved it," she grumbles. That had been one hell of a one-sided screaming match. Then, prodding, trying to keep the obvious hope out of her voice, even as it battles against the pleased hum of his confession. "That's it?"

"I think it's your turn."

"I'm not very good at this."

"Good, because neither am I."

Clarke manages a tiny grin, feeling more comfortable now, because Bellamy has that effect on her. She's not sure why she still feels nervous when he'd just told her that he's wanted to kiss her for a long time now, but she is. "I like you," she says. "I'm not good at this, talking about –" she waves her hand in the air, "– all this. Feelings. But this past week, I realized that that's how I feel, that's why I missed you so much even though it's only been a _week_. It's why I'm always happy whenever I see you, why I can't imagine not having you in my life because it sucks not having you around, and I don't _want_ that. I want you around. I want – you."

Bellamy comes closer, his hand brushing her fingers. The nervousness fades slowly and she meets his eyes, the intensity behind them unreadable, all of it directed at her. It's mostly overwhelming, if she's being honest.

"Thoughts?"

He brings his hand to her face, brushing his thumb across her cheek gently. "You like me?"

"Yeah," she breathes out. "And I was avoiding you for a bit because I didn't know how to deal with it."

"I was avoiding you too," he admits, sheepishly, and she has to curse Monty for being right. "Because I thought I had ruined things with you and I didn't know how to fix something like this if I had."

She can't help but let out a little giggle. "We're doing really well, aren't we?"

He grins at her, brushing aside some hair from her face. "It's always good to be aware of your faults."

"Speak for yourself. I don't have any."

"Do you need a list? Because I'm sure I can come up with one." It feels good to laugh with Bellamy, to be with him like this, to have figured things out with him.

But it nags at her. "So we're – good now? We're –" He dips his head down at the same time he tilts her face up by her chin and seals his mouth over hers, gentle and reassuring. It takes a second to register what's happening and then she's kissing him back, standing on her tiptoes to get closer, a delicate balancing act between pressing close and not crushing her wrist between them. Bellamy's an amazing kisser, something that she hadn't appreciated enough that night, but she's pretty sure that she can't risk another injury to her wrist. Maybe a little longer, though.

But it's Bellamy, perpetual caretaker, so he has a sixth sense for these things. They break apart for a second, lips swollen, and he keeps his face close to hers, mouth hovering over hers. She tries to chase him for another kiss, and he lets her for one, pecks her for another, and murmurs against her lips, "Your wrist okay?"

She steals another kiss from him. "Would be better if you could stop talking."

"Raincheck?"

Heaving a huge sigh, she flopped onto his chest. "I hate this wrist. I hate those guys." Bellamy holds a hand against her head and smooths down her hair.

"After we figure out how to get rid of them, let's just stay out of any mysteries for a year. How's that sound?"

"Three months."

"Eight months."

"Three months."

"Eight and a half months."

"I don't think that's how you're supposed to negotiate."

"You're one to talk–" A sharp knock, followed by a succession of loud, pounding knocks, interrupts Bellamy, the smile on his face dropping immediately. Clarke pulls back and both of them turn their heads towards the front door, an apprehensive dread settling in the bottom of her stomach. It doesn't have to be those guys from the cafe, but it doesn't mean whoever is out there is not. If there was anyone more likely, given the connection and what happened earlier, she would guess it was them first. Damn it. She was hoping that they'd lost them on the way to Bellamy's, but she must've been careless, was too consumed with worry about whether they had gotten to him already –

"Where are you going?" She asks, bewildered, when she sees Bellamy walking slowly out of the kitchen and towards the front door. He slips out of her grasp when she grabs at him, one finger on his lips in the universal _shut up, Clarke_ motion. "We're in _here_ , they can't _hear_ us." She says this in a whisper, though, just in case.

"They _could_ ," he argues, still making his way to the door. Clarke follows, exasperated, spots an umbrella in the corner and grabs it. _One_ of them should have a weapon at least.

She has it raised, poised for attack, when the knock comes again, but this time, it's accompanied by an urgent, muffled voice, "BELLAMY!"

Miller.

"What the hell?" Bellamy asks when he yanks the door open, finding himself face to face with Miller, Monty, and two other officers.

"What the _hell_?" Miller repeats, pointing at her raised umbrella when they all walk inside. She holds it defensively against her chest and scowls.

"I didn't know it was _you_."

"Obviously _you're_ okay."

"Clarke!" Monty interjects, his eyes darting to her wrist. "Your wrist?"

"I'll survive," she says wryly, a bad time to make a joke probably, but it makes her feel better. Or maybe that had been the kissing. "What's with all this?"

"I think we need to talk about this Alie person," MIller answers, a pointed look at Bellamy. Bellamy sighs.

"Fine. But Clarke needs a bandage for her wrist first."

***

Twenty minutes later, Clarke's wrist is wrapped tight, an ice pack stationed over it, and they've come to an agreement that Bellamy's house is safe for now, any retaliation unlikely past their previous window of opportunity, but if they ever suspect it isn't, Miller is their first call. It's a long negotiation and almost everyone involved gives in just to end it.

They tell Miller about meeting Alie, about breaking into her office (with a forlorn, disgruntled sigh from Miller), about the guys that had attacked them there and at the restaurant. She stays close to Bellamy the whole time and he stays close to her, his hand on her thigh, his fingers laced with hers. It's the wrong time to think about the state of their relationship, since she knows that, unfortunately, something more pressing is happening, but these things make it easy. She's still wary about most of it, but not about choosing Bellamy.

Miller leaves with a lecture about keeping him in the loop, along with a teasing glint in his eye, shared by Monty, and Clarke collapses onto Bellamy's chest, pushing him back onto the couch.

"Hey, your head is heavy," he complains, but his hand is already smoothing out her hair. She takes the opportunity to curl up against him. It's nothing new, but it still _feels_ different. In a good way.

"My wrist is sprained," she shoots back, a little muffled in his shirt.

"Wow. You're really going to pull that card?"

"You insulted my head weight. This makes us even."

Bellamy laughs into her hair. "We should probably get back to your place, look at that journal."

She sighs, knows that he's right. "I'm reconsidering your eight month offer."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. It sounds really good right now."

"Sounds great, actually. Let's get this done so we can get to that."

He kisses her once, short and sweet, before he hauls her to her feet.

***

"The journal's in my room," she says when he unlocks the door. She had almost succeeded in it with her left hand, but it didn't turn right, so Bellamy finally took pity on her. He opens the door and gestures for her to step inside first.

"You trust me to snoop around your room?" It's a joke, but she narrows her eyes at him anyways.

"Just try it," she warns. "It should be on my desk somewhere. Ignore all the doodles of your name."

He grins, sharp and mischievous. "When I go in there and there's nothing like that, you know how disappointed I'm going to be, right?"

"Would I ever disappoint you like that?"

"The truth?"

"Just go find out."

"I don't take orders from you!" He calls back over his shoulder as he strolls towards her room. She doesn't realize she's standing there with a blissful smile, something she'd make fun of herself for if she could see her face right now, until Raven comes up to her.

"What's with the face? Wait. What the hell happened to you?" She turns her towards her and her examination turns into disbelief fast. "What happened."

"Would you believe if I'm just really clumsy? Okay, sorry! Two of Alie's guys found me and Monty during brunch. It went really well." Raven closes her eyes and rubs her temples before sending her an exasperated look.

"How the hell did they find you guys?"

"No fucking clue."

Bellamy appears at her shoulder, smiling down at her, and her own giddy smile is back, reflected in his. Raven actually starts gagging, although her smirk is glued on when they look at her. Clarke clears her throat and grabs the journal pages out of his hands, holding them out in front of her so all three of them can look at it.

It's a disappointing find.

Whatever they hoped it would be, it's not that. She wanted it to be a smoking gun, the final piece of evidence that would put her away, something that said _I'M GUILTY_ , but what they have is a few sheets of paper ripped out from a journal with a short record of when they made the deal with Anya, the start-up costs, and a set of dates that correspond with each of the incidents that have occurred at the bakery.

Raven points out, "Shouldn't that work? It's like admission of guilt right there."

"Too easy to spin it," Bellamy says, exactly what Clarke was thinking. "She can say that she wrote it down after they happened, pretend it's them making note of these things happening because it's their business."

"Not if they find out the way they attacked you at their offices, or at the brunch place –"

"Which we don't have proof of."

Frustrated by how much of a letdown the journal was, not knowing that had been pinning her hopes on it until just now, Clarke starts pacing, stopping in front of the coffee table. There's a stack of mail sitting there and, out of habit, she sits down and flips through it, separating it into Raven's, hers, bills, and junk. Raven tends to forget about the mail until it's too late, so most of the time, it's Clarke who has to set the reminders about when to pay the bills. It's fun, she likes the organization.

It's the name on the envelope that catches her attention, causes her to stop what she's doing. Her head gets fuzzy and her ears are warm, the way they get when dread washes over her, pins her to one spot. _Claire and Richard Johnson_ , with her address. There's no return sender or address, but. It's Alie. There's no one else that knows them by those names, as throwaway as they were.

"Clarke?" Bellamy's voice shakes her out of her trance, makes her realize that she's crumpled the envelope in her hand. When she looks at him, he looks concerned, eyes searching her face to understand what's going on.

Shakily, she smooths out the envelope and hands it to him. It takes a second for him to look at it, remember the names, figure out the implications, and rip it open.

"It's an invitation," he reports as he scans down the lone sheet of paper. "The Alie Corporation is having a merger party. We're invited."

" _Why_?" Raven demands, snatching the invitation out of his hands. Clarke takes a step back so she can sit down and calm down and ends up tripping over her feet; Bellamy's there with a hand to her back, catching her before she falls. She holds onto his hand, squeezes it harder than normal.

"Never mind the why," Bellamy says, taking charge immediately. "We need to leave this place. Alie knows this address, she probably has you followed, we have to go."

"No," Raven says, defiant. "I'm not being chased out of my house by some psychotic bitch. No way in hell."

"Raven."

"She won't be able to get past our security system."

"You think she won't be able to hack your system just like you hacked hers?"

"I _know_ she won't be able to."

"I swear to God –"

While Bellamy and Raven argue, Clarke goes over the options in her head. It terrifies her that Alie knows where she lives and Bellamy's suggestion is the right one, to leave and not look back. But if she found her once, she could do it again, and where could she go where she wouldn't be followed? She takes a look at the invitation that's fluttered to the coffee table since Raven let go. There's no doubt it's a trap, but what if they used the opportunity to set a trap for _her_? That could work. It wasn't impossible; they had a week, they could figure something out by then.

"We have to go," she cuts in, loud and determined. Bellamy looks relieved, gesturing to her.

"Thank you," he says. "See? Clarke wants to leave too, so –"

"No. No, not that. We need to go to this party."

Both pairs of eyes stare back at her, incredulous. "You can't be serious," Raven says, shaking her head. "You want to walk into the lion's den and what? Talk to her? Ask her to turn herself in?"

"I want to set a trap for her. We should get a confession out of her." It sounds better when she says it, except that she has no plan at all. They've gotten this far, though.

"What kind of trap?"

"I haven't gotten that far yet."

"How far did you get?"

"That we needed to go?"

Bellamy rips his hand out of her grasp and storms off without another word, sequestering himself in the bathroom. She stares after him, shocked by what just happened, tries to look helplessly at Raven for answers.

She scoffs. "Don't look at me. He's _your_ boyfriend."

" _Hey_."

With a roll of her eyes, Raven's smile is less sympathetic and more pitying. "Save your useless denial for another time. I'm going to check on the security settings while you go sort that out. At least _someone_ here should have their priorities straight when a probable murderer is stalking us." Another eyeroll and Raven's limped off, picking up her iPad that she left on the table and closing the door to her bedroom behind her.

Through the door, Clarke can hear the sound of the water running. She stares at the wood for a second, takes a deep breath, and knocks, softly at first and then, when there's no response, loudly. "Bellamy, it's me."

The water turns off. A muffled, "It's unlocked."

When she opens the door, she sees Bellamy with his back to the mirror, hands braced on the sink behind him. The hair over his forehead is slightly wet, tendrils curling away from his face. She's never going to get over how beautiful he is at any given moment.

He doesn't make a motion to move, so neither does she. It's an impasse until he finally says, after clearing his throat, "Don't stay here. Please. It's way too dangerous." Then, she's moving toward him, stopping right in front of him, looking him in the eye. One hand rises up to play with the curls over his forehead, brushing them down. He looks at her with imploring eyes, and this close, she can trace the lines of his face, see his wet eyelashes, put her thumb in the dimple on his chin.

"You shouldn't underestimate Raven's security system."

"I wouldn't dare. But you don't know what else they're capable of. They know where you live. I can't stop thinking about what would happen if –"

She can't either, even though she's trying to. "Where would we go?"

"Stay with me. Just for a bit. You and Raven can have my room, I'll take the couch –"

"No," she says firmly. "We're not imposing on you and Octavia, _especially_ while she's still mad at me."

"She'll understand! She _will_ ," he has to add when she looks skeptical. She doesn't _not_ like the idea, and the thought of Bellamy right there makes her feel safer. She could endure Octavia for a few days.

"I don't know if Raven will agree."

"If we reason with her?"

"She might."

"So yes? Until this is over, at least."

She smooths down a curl and then releases it. "I'd like that." He lets out a breath, the tension immediately releasing from his face. She hadn't realized he was getting so stressed about it, but she had been preoccupied with her own stress about everything too.

After a few minutes pass with her resting her head against his chest and him smoothing down her hair, she decides to take the opportunity to bring up the merger party. It has to be done; it has to be their way in. "I know you don't like it, but we need to go to that party."

"Clarke, it's not –"

She lifts her head, looking him in the eye. "We can get her once and for all."

"Or you could get hurt again. Worse this time."

"You don't know that."

"Actually, I _do_. It's what's happened each time since."

He's not wrong, but she still tries, "We are _this_ close to finishing this."

"And remember what happened to Murphy? Remember that explosion? The almost fire?" Bellamy lists them off with a bite to the words, an unwelcome reminder that logically, he's right. But she's past logic and out of moves.

"I want to confront her," she says plainly, her hand resting on his stomach. "I want her to know we're not scared, that she can't scare us. That we know she's behind everything and we're going to get her." She _is_ scared and Alie _has_ scared her, but the invitation is clearly a challenge and Clarke doesn't back down from challenges.

"And I want you safe!"

"You don't get to make that decision for me!"

"Someone has to, since you don't want to!"

"I'm not doing this for fun, okay? I'm doing this because we're out of options and this might be the only time we can actually be this close to her without having to run away! I'm not just fucking around here and–" she huffs, her nostrils flaring, " _Why_ are we yelling at each other?" It takes her until this second to hear how loud their voices have gotten, how they've gotten into each other's faces, her finger pointing into his chest. She lays her palm against it, feels his heartbeat slow down to a normal steady pace.

Bellamy is tense and angry, but his eyes are soft and pleading and the way he looks at her makes her knees weak. "We are playing into their hands."

"Sometimes that works though."

"Usually it helps if there's a _plan_ involved."

"I have a plan," she says easily, confidently, as if she didn't just think of it in the past thirty seconds. He doesn't have to know that.

"Oh, _now_ you do."

" _Yes_. Do you want to hear it or not?"

"I'm all ears."

"We need to go up to her and lay our cards out on the table. Tell her we know she's behind each of the incidents at the bakery, that we have witnesses who can testify to that. We can pin her bodyguards coming after us on her."

"Make her give us the proof we need."

"Bait her, basically."

He looks intrigued, but, "She doesn't seem like the kind of person that would give anything away like that. You saw how she was when we met her. Way too calm."

"But that was before she felt threatened. That's why she's sending her guys after us, why she's trying to draw us out –"

"And apparently succeeding –"

"We can talk about that later – she knows, or is scared, at least, that we're onto her – which we are – and that we know enough to do something about it. If she didn't think we were, then she would be leaving us alone."

"I know what you did last summer?"

"Exactly. That's how we trap her."

Bellamy takes a while to think about it. "It's not enough."

She crosses her arms, or tries to. Her injured one really just hangs there. "She's clearly _rattled_ , we can use that against her!"

"What if we corner her bodyguards too? Alie might not break a sweat lying to us, but I bet we can get some kind of confession out of them."

As the plan comes together, going from a wisp of nothing to a cloudy outline, she's reminded again how well she and Bellamy work together, how they discuss through the possibilities, how they aren't afraid to point out weaknesses in each other's ideas. She feels a surge of happiness and rises up to kiss him impulsively, driven by everything that's happening.

"What was that for?" He asks, mouth hanging open slightly. "Not that I'm complaining."

"Because you're so smart."

"That's a relief. I was worried you wouldn't think so."

"Does this mean you're going to go to this party with me?"

Like it's physically paining him to agree, he grumbles out a reluctant, "If we have to."

She beams at him. "Alie won't know what hit her."

***

Raven refuses to go with them ("There is no way you could pay me to live with _both_ of you,"), but does say she'll stay with Monty, so it's a win in the end. Octavia sulks and skulks around the house, but, like Bellamy said, seems to understand why she's there.

Bellamy insists on taking the couch, practically tucking her into his bed himself before heading out, and she lasts twenty minutes of tossing and turning before she tiptoes out and curls up with him, rousing him from his sleep.

He freezes for a second, and then relaxes, hugging her closer. Into her hair, he mumbles, after pressing a kiss there, "Can't sleep?"

"You don't have to take the couch."

"You're the guest."

"We're _dating_."

"We are?" He says it like he's testing it, like he wants it to be true.

" _Yes_." She adds a slight headbutt to dare him to disagree. He chuckles and the sound makes her shiver and snuggle closer.

"We haven't even gone on a date yet."

"Then consider it our first date."

"Okay, okay, hold on," he shuffles, getting up slowly. His hair sticks up in the back and he blinks sleepily at her before she takes his hand and pulls him along, leading him towards his bedroom. It feels weird, walking him to his room, getting into his bed, even if all they're going to do is sleep. But it's a good weird.

It's awkward for a second, both of them staring up at the ceiling, but then she takes his arm and wraps it around her waist.

"Don't steal the covers," she warns.

"They're _my_ covers," he says, and for once, she has nothing else to say, just sighs happily and closes her eyes. She falls asleep to Bellamy's steady breathing and warm embrace.

***

She wakes up first, careful not to disturb Bellamy in his sleep. Quietly and reluctantly, she pulls herself from his arms and lingers at the edge of the bed staring down at him. He looks younger like this, calm and peaceful and worry-free. She can't _wait_ until they close this case.

Her stomach rumbling forces her hand and she really just wanted to maybe make some toast and then crawl back into bed with Bellamy, but Octavia's sitting at the counter, scrolling through her phone and eating cereal. She comes to an awkward halt when the other girl raises an eyebrow at her and doesn't shake off the awkwardness as she pads into the kitchen. She had borrowed a shirt from Bellamy last night, but the pajama pants are hers, and it still feels like she's being judged.

Toast, then back to the room.

"Cereal's in the pantry," Octavia says. Clarke blinks at her.

"Oh," she says back. "Okay." The pantry has a well-stocked catalog of cereal, organized neatly in a way that suggests Bellamy was the culprit, and she decides on cornflakes. Her stomach grumbles again in agreement.

"Bowls are above the sink. We only have 2%."

It's not that she's _expecting_ hostility from Octavia (that much), but the civility throws her off, even if she's not doing much. Clarke had been prepared for antagonism. Now she has to readjust. "I like 2%," she says lamely.

Although she really, _really_ doesn't want to sit and talk to Octavia, she knows it'd set a bad precedent if she doesn't. This isn't just her friend's sister now, this is her _boyfriend's_ sister. Maybe it was silly, but it was different. She had no dreams of suddenly becoming best friends with Octavia, but she didn't want to make things difficult for Bellamy. She didn't want to keep fighting with Octavia either.

She sits down next to her gingerly and spends her first few spoonfuls of cereal trying not to chew too loudly, trying to come up with a way to settle this between them.

Thankfully, Octavia starts the conversation for her. "Are you and Bell dating now?"

The spoon in her mouth, she coughs slightly before answering. "Yeah. We are."

Octavia narrows her eyes at that, just a little, enough that Clarke notices. It makes her instinctively defensive and she has to tamp it down. "Is it serious?"

"I don't know," she says honestly. She drops the spoon back into the bowl. "I know that sounds – _bad_. I'm not good at relationships, I haven't made the best choices in the past – but. I really like Bellamy. I _really_ like him."

"That's it?"

"I don't think the rest is really your business. Sorry."

Octavia rolls her eyes and scoffs. "Fine."

"And I'll try to get along better with you."

"Why?"

"Because I think Bellamy would like that."

"Do whatever you want. But… I guess we can call a truce." She says it begrudgingly and goes back to chomping on her cereal afterwards, but it feels like it's a good step. Maybe it'll never get any better, but Clarke tried. She feels good about that.

When she finally makes her way back to Bellamy's room, he's still asleep and she's debating waking him up when he actually does. Blearily, he blinks the sleep out of his eyes.

"Morning," he says, voice gravelly in a way that makes her so glad she decided to stay over. He struggles to push himself into a sitting position and mostly just lies there, head propped up on his pillow. "What time is it?"

"Time for you to get a watch," she says, laughing when he flips her off. She sits down on the bed and he immediately tugs her close so eventually her back is pressed against the headboard and his head is in her lap, her fingers automatically running through his soft curls. "I like how organized your cereal collection is."

"You touched my cereal?" He asks, eyes closed, although one hand is drawing unidentifiable patterns on her back.

"Octavia said I could."

"Did I sleep through a fight?"

She wrinkles her nose at him, but he doesn't see it. "We don't fight all the time."

"And Murphy _isn't_ an asshole."

"Incomparable. Also, we called a truce."

He opens one eye. Skeptical: "A truce."

"Yes, a truce. We're both adults. We can call truces."

"I'm impressed," and to his credit, he sounds it.

"I'm very impressive."

It's actually annoying how quickly she gets heart palpitations when he smiles at her, with the smile that she's claimed is hers. She's his girlfriend, she can do that. "I would never dispute that."

She pokes at a patch of freckles. "Go brush your teeth. We have planning to do."

***

The day of the gala is a frenzy, Raven and Monty hovering over them as they get ready. Raven's worried about sneaking their electronics in, Monty's worried their plan won't work. Bellamy's worried about everything, and Clarke pretends she's not worried at all. It passes most of the day until they have to get ready and by that point, she's reached the _only a few more hours_ stage.

They're nearly running late by the time they've finally finished getting ready, but in her defense, she has to spend ten minutes trying to pull the zipper of her strapless black dress (her go-to charity event dress) with a sprained wrist and that's fun for no one. Bellamy hasn't complained once, although it's probably more to do with the fact that he doesn't want to go and is hoping the delay is because she's changed her mind about the gala than it is about being a good person.

"I give up," she says loudly, walking into the living room where Bellamy is sat. The sight of him makes her stop in her tracks, taking the image of him in his black suit, the tie undone around his neck, his hair messily curly. The _only_ bad thing is that he's not in his glasses, but then again, it might be a good thing, if she can't even handle this much of him. She remembers to breathe. "Oh. You look good." Understatement.

It helps that Bellamy seems to be having the same reaction as her. She blushes under his gaze and walks closer, taking the ends of his tie into her hands. "Yeah? You look okay."

She tugs at the ends, pulling him down a little. "You look _great_ , Clarke. We should go to more parties if you will always wear that."

"I think I'll pass," she says, her fingers making quick work of his tie for him. "This is a life skill, you know."

"Tie tying?"

"Everyone should know how to."

"I skipped that day of life skills. What did you give up on?"

"What?" She turns around, gathering her hair over one shoulder so it's not in the way. "Oh, yeah. Can you zip me up?"

He presses a kiss to her shoulder after he does, and then gives her a real kiss when she turns around. She can't help but pull him closer, just out of habit. It's been two weeks and it's a habit already. Bellamy pulls back and kisses the tip of her nose as she frowns in disapproval.

"Hey, you were the one who said we needed to go to the party."

"Past Clarke doesn't know what she's talking about."

"Too bad she didn't listen to Past Bellamy."

"All right, let's go."

***

The Polis Grand Hotel's main ballroom is where the Alie Corporation's merger party is being held and as soon as they get the okay to head inside, she's blinded by the light gleaming from the glass chandeliers. It's obvious no expense has been spared for this event and _no_ one has been left off the invite list. They've underestimated how big of a company Alie has.

"Jesus Christ," Bellamy says under his breath, his hand on the small of her back as they walk in, avoiding groups of people gathered around and making a beeline for the first waiter they see. They down their champagne flutes immediately and surprisingly, it does help a little in stabilizing them. "Do you see her?"

She tries to find Alie, the image of the woman in the red dress and black heels at the forefront of her mind, even though it's not a helpful guide in this case. It turns out she doesn't have to waste a lot of time finding her because Alie finds them first, dressed in a different shade of red.

"Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, I'm _so_ glad you could make it," comes a chilling voice attached to a chillingly composed woman with a gleam in her eye. It takes a minute to register the pseudonyms again; somehow she'd forgotten that they would have to pose as the married Johnsons, although it's clear Alie knows who they really are. Her smile stays in place as she walks closer, flanked by two of her bodyguards. The one on the left is the guy who tried to stop her from leaving the restaurant with Monty.

She whispers that information to Bellamy quickly before Alie gets closer and feels his hand, which has drifted to her waist, tighten.

"I hope you remember me," Alie continues. "I feel like I need to apologize for how rude I was that day we met. Unfortunately, it's been extraordinarily busy lately, what with all the planning for this gala and our normal business activities. On any other day, I might've been able to see you without an appointment – oh dear. Can I ask what happened to your wrist?" Her eyes zero in on the bandage that's still wrapped around her wrist – which has been healing well, although not to the extent that she's able to take it off yet.

She ignores the bodyguard on the left and waves her wrist in the air with an airy laugh. "Oh, I tried to lift something too heavy by myself and it didn't go so well." Alie nods in sympathy and Clarke is eager to move on. Her wrist twinges a little. "We were surprised when we received the invite." Bellamy is too tense beside her. _Just pretend nothing's wrong_. "After we weren't able to meet with you properly, we hadn't realized you remembered us."

Alie chuckles, no warmth or humor in it. "We're very welcoming here. I figured it was best if you got to experience how we work with a new business to bring them into our family and it was convenient that we had this event coming up."

"Thank you for thinking of us," Bellamy adds, giving no hint away about how he really feels. "Maybe we could talk a little later? I'm sure you need to make your rounds." Everyone laughs. A waiter comes by and Alie stops him, taking two flutes off his tray to hand to them. Reluctantly, they take them.

"Of course, please feel free to find me later," Alie says. "I would _love_ to talk to you more." She hates how much that sounds like a threat and how much it scares her. "I'll be the one in red."

As soon as Alie leaves, taking the bodyguards with her, both of them relax. Bellamy presses a kiss to her temple, steadying her nerves. She smiles gratefully up at him and he returns it before taking the champagne out of her hand and dropping them onto an incoming tray.

"What do we do now?"

"Let's walk around for a bit and then split up."

"I'm going after her bodyguards," Bellamy says, an edge in his voice. She frowns.

"Just for information, right?"

His jaw clenches. "Promise."

"Good," she says. "I'll keep an eye on Alie."

"Don't go after her by yourself."

"Promise."

She doesn't want to, anyways.

***

It takes an hour before the bodyguards leave Alie and Bellamy follows them, pretending he's going to the bathroom. He has his earbud in so Clarke can listen to what's going on and – although she doesn't want anything to happen – intervene if necessary.

It takes five minutes before Bellamy gets them to confess everything, driven by either the promise that they can get lower sentences for providing information or Bellamy's natural ability to convince people to help him (or both), but he's back before she knows it, an easy smile on his face, an arm slung around her the back of her chair.

"Don't gloat," she says, accepting his kiss on the cheek.

"If I had known it was that easy, I would've agreed to this earlier."

She glares at him. "I said, don't gloat."

He leans over and swipes a crab puff from her plate, dropping the recording device, a little black rectangle, into her lap. She opens up her bag and inserts it into the USB that's somehow connected to Miller's computer at the station. Monty had explained it but it's way over her head now. All she knows – and needs to know – is that Miller's going to get it in a matter of minutes.

"I should be allowed to gloat for at least a minute."

"Nope. You can't gloat at all. Did you even have to _try_?"

"I think it's more of a matter of her bodyguards having zero sense of loyalty than me not trying."

"You still make it look easy."

"I'm glad I can impress you."

"Who says I'm impressed?" But to undercut that, she kisses him. He's hard to resist; she can't believe there was a time she used to do it. "Now we just need to get Alie."

"I have a feeling she'll be a lot harder to crack than those guys." Bellamy gets up and extends his hand, which she takes. "Let's make it look like we're actually walking around."

She loops her arm through his and they start walking, no destination in mind, but it gives them a better view of the room and the people in it, keeping an eye out for Alie. "Hopefully they won't tell her anything."

"They won't or the deal is off the table."

"I guess it doesn't matter that much, since Miller has the confession already. But…"

"But still."

Alie emerges from a group surrounding her at a table and they stop in place, Bellamy's head bent towards her so it looks like he's about to say something to her, instead of them following her movement. She walks with the air of confidence, but the smile she bestows on the guests never looks genuine. There's always something missing in it. She stops to talk to a few people, but no one really pays her too much attention, everyone too busy trying to rub elbows with the rich and powerful. She ends up leaving the ballroom, which isn't unusual because everyone has been coming in and out all night, so without a discussion, they take off after her, weaving through the guests, the waiters, and everyone in between.

"This way?" Bellamy suggests, pointing to his right. There's no sign of which direction she took so it's a lucky guess either way. He leads the way, although the empty hallway is eerie. They try to take silent steps while straining to hear any sign of movement, action, or conversation. Towards the end of the hallway, Clarke hears it, the faint sound of a raised voice, muffled by a door and the distance.

_Can you hear anything?_ , she mouths to Bellamy, who's crouched by the door, his ear against the wood, trying to make out words through the surface. Her heart is tight as they stand – or crouch – there, one split second away from the door opening.

_Not much_ , he mouths back, a frown creasing his forehead. _Mad_. That surprises her because she hadn't really expected Alie to _know_ how to show emotion, honestly. _Bodyguards_ , and then she can't read the rest of what he's trying to say.

_What_?

He tiptoes away from the door and grabs her hand, pulling her farther away from the door. Once they're a few feet away, he bends down close to her ear. "Asking where you are," he says quietly, and alarmed, her eyes dart to the door. "Her bodyguards are supposed to bring you to her later."

Eyes still on the door, she makes the decision immediately. "Let's confront her now. Just tell her –"

"Tell her what? That we are in the _process_ of getting her arrested?"

"We don't need to wait!" She knows they do, until they get the final word from Miller, but she's so _tired_ of waiting until Alie does something so that they can react to it, so that they can play catch up. She wants the first strike this time. Pushing Bellamy away with a hand on his chest, she starts to whirl past him towards the door until they hear the door handle being turned. She freezes, staring helplessly at Bellamy. A second later, he catches her arm and pulls her back, right into his chest, the sudden collision releasing a surprised, "Oh!" from her mouth, before Bellamy puts one hand under her chin and tilts her face towards him, slotting his mouth right over hers.

Clarke blames the high pressure situation for not thinking of this first.

As soon as she catches onto what his plan is, a plan she has no objection to, for the record, she kisses him back, opening her mouth for him almost immediately, deepening the kiss so that he actually lets out a groan before he moves his hands to her waist, bunching the material of the dress as he does so. She ends up pushing him back against the wall, giggling into his mouth and kissing him again, tangling a hand into his hair, pulling on the knot of his tie, getting so caught up in the moment that she forgets they're using this as a distraction from their real mission.

" _Ahem_." Unsurprisingly, it's Alie and Ontari, the latter gawking at them, the former staring blankly, with the only sign of distaste in the slight curl of her lip. "You're not allowed to be here."

Clarke pretends to be embarrassed, which isn't hard, because it's still a _little_ bit embarrassing, and hides her face against Bellamy's chest as he rubs her back.

"Sorry," Bellamy says smoothly, although a little out of breath to her ears, "We were looking for someplace quiet to talk."

" _Right._ _Talk_ ," Ontari scoffs, crossing her arms and glaring at them.

"We got distracted," Clarke adds, snuggling closer just for the way it seems to make Ontari mad. It helps that Bellamy has great arms too. "We'll be going now." She tugs at Bellamy, trying to urge him along.

"Wait." They stop. "We were supposed to talk later."

"Oh," Clarke says. "Right. We'd love to, but –"

"We told the babysitter we'd be back ten minutes ago," Bellamy picks up. "And it's already been hard being away from the kids this long." He adds a kiss on top of her hair and she tries to affect an expression that conveys that.

"Of course. That can't be helped. Feel free to set up an appointment anytime. I believe I'll have more free time soon."

With an uneasy glance back – Alie's bright red dress gleaming next to Ontari's black one, Alie's bright red smile scarily pasted on – they start to leave. She's hyperaware of her movements, trying to make them as natural as possible, which means she's walking as unnaturally as possible while hoping it looks natural.

"It's fine," Bellamy whispers.

"Let's just go," she says, unable to shake the feeling of being watched, even after they turn the corner. Once they near the main hall, she finally relaxes. " _Kids_?"

"I panicked."

"I couldn't tell."

"I hide it well."

"Really well. Let's go home."

"Best thing I've heard all night."

If she can't keep the smile off her face, that's really not her problem.

***

Bellamy's tie is loosened before he even has his door unlocked and he's working on the top button when the door closes.

"I'm surprised it took you this long," she says, feeling a lot more relaxed than she has in weeks. There's nothing like the feeling of nearing the close of a case, but it also helps that she's in an empty house with her hot also-detective boyfriend, who looks even better disheveled and annoyed with his shirt.

"I'm following etiquette."

"Oh? That's what it is?"

"I'll lend you the book on it sometime."

"Thanks." She looks around. "Octavia's gone?"

"At Lincoln's," Bellamy answers, raising an eyebrow at her. He knows she knew that already.

"Good."

"Good?"

She fakes a yawn and turns abruptly to head into Bellamy's room, hoping that he'll follow. "I think I'm going to sleep now." He doesn't follow immediately; by the time she sees him leaning against his doorframe, she's sprawled out on his bed, still in her dress, smiling at him. He smiles back and comes closer, peering down at her, immeasurably fond. Her heart skips a beat.

"You might want to change out of that dress," he says, light and teasing as he undoes his tie. Clarke wants to drag him down and run her fingers through his hair.

Pulling herself into an upright position, she pretends to think about it. "I do have a sprained wrist. I might need some help," she says, and Bellamy laughs as he bends down to kiss her, slowly pushing her back onto his bed, careful to keep her wrist out of the way. No matter what she does, he keeps things slow, kissing her until she can't breathe and then pressing kisses along her jaw, along her neck, along her collarbone, until she's squirming underneath him, one hand in his hair, the other trying its best to unbutton his shirt.

"Bellamy, help me out here," she begs, closing her eyes when he drags his mouth across the swell of her breasts. She feels him grin before he pulls back, staring down at her with a smile on his face.

He brushes her hair away from her eyes and then kisses her again, slow and sweet. "I told you you look beautiful tonight, didn't I?"

"I think you said I looked okay."

"I think I amended it to great," he corrects.

"I think… I don't really care. Get this dress off me," she instructs, struggling to sit up with Bellamy pressed against her. Not that she _minds_ , really, but it might help with the dress thing. Bellamy doesn't waste time after that, quickly unzipping her dress and helping her step out of it – a task that almost causes her to fall twice – and when he turns back to her, he's clearly trying his hardest to keep his eyes on her face.

"You can look at my boobs," she says, amused, and he nearly chokes.

"I'm trying to take things slow," he mutters, but she tugs him closer, untucking his shirt and nudging him so he'll help her take it off.

"And I'm trying to have sex with you," she says, falling back onto the bed. "How's that sound?"

"Sounds good." He doesn't have any complaints after that, and neither does she, not when he puts his mouth on her clit and teases her until she's trembling, or when he spends forever with his hands on her breasts, whispering about all the times he's wanted to do this to her, and especially not when he makes her come twice before she drags him up for a kiss, telling him to fuck her and coming for the third time that night, with her nails digging into his back and his lips crushed against hers.

***

It takes Clarke embarrassingly long to realize someone is home, but in her defense, Bellamy is really comfortable against her back, and _he_ doesn't realize it either. But then she hears a (likely deliberate) clanging sound that startles her out of her half-awake state and she groans,

"Octavia's home," she mumbles. Bellamy tightens his grip on her waist and lets out an incomprehensible sound. "I don't know what you're saying, but we should probably get up."

"Why?"

"Because I don't think she's going to stop making all that noise until we acknowledge that she's home."

"She'll stop eventually."

Another clang says otherwise. (Very) Reluctantly, Clarke untangles herself from Bellamy's arms, and drowsily searches for her bra and underwear. "I'm borrowing a shirt," she tells him over her shoulder.

"You want me to get up, don't you?"

"I really do," she tells him, slipping on her favorite of his shirts – the worn, blue one – and grabbing the shorts she had left the other night.

"I'm up, I'm up," he says, even though she's still laying down, one arm thrown over his eyes. She throws a shirt at him.

"Fine, I'll go do damage control, but get up soon."

His response is a thumbs up.

When she steps outside, it's not Octavia she finds. It's Alie, sitting on Bellamy's couch like it's hers, sipping from a cup like it's hers, with two bodyguards – different ones from the night before – flanking her. A chill runs down her spine.

"Good morning, Ms Griffin. I thought the two of you would never wake up," Alie says, smiling serenely – yet devoid of feeling – at her. She gestures at the teapot in front of her. "Tea?"

"How –" Her throat feels dry. "How did you get in?"

"For someone who has had no qualms breaking past my security system, your own lacks a certain care. But I suppose you're waiting for Mr. Blake, so you should call him out here, and I'll tell you the reason I'm here."

She stares defiantly at Alie for a moment, and without breaking that stare, she shouts, "Bellamy! Can you come out here?"

He almost runs into her with the same surprise when he does. "What are you doing here?" He demands, already moving to stand in front of Clarke.

Alie takes another sip of tea before she sets the cup down. "Your _friends_ ," she sneers, "are currently searching my building for evidence of wrongdoing. I'll have to admit, it was clever of you to turn my bodyguards against me. However," she pauses, and Bellamy steps closer, "You didn't really think things would be that easy, did you?"

"Just say what you came here to say," Bellamy growls.

"The police can search all they want, but they won't be able to find what they need. Unfortunately for them, I have what they're looking for," Alie explains with all the calm in the world. She holds up a flash drive in front of her. "Fortunately for you, I'll give it to you."

Clarke scoffs. "You're wasting both our time and yours."

"I'll gladly give it up," Alie says, undeterred. "By the time you get it – well, _if_ you get it – I'll be far away."

"Are we doing the villain monologue now?" Bellamy asks.

"I wouldn't classify myself as a villain," Alie muses, "After all, I'm only trying to create a better world and a stronger economy. I expect villains reject these sorts of things."

"You'd be surprised," she says, trying to keep her talking until she figures out what she's trying to do with her offer. There's no way whatever's on the flash drive is real, but that means Alie has another motive behind her visit. "We've heard it all before."

"I'm sure you have. But if you think I need to explain myself, I'll gladly do it. You see, my company prides itself on its business. We're very good at it too, as you may have noticed when you broke into my office. We have never had a problem with any of our businesses," here, Alie's eyes narrow slightly, "until Anya Archer's little pastry shop. We gave her numerous chances to turn it around, really, we did. Nothing ever seemed to work, though. They had become… a liability."

"Which _definitely_ warranted deliberate sabotage," Bellamy scoffs.

"We don't tolerate failure, Mr. Blake," Alie reprimands sharply. "The first few incidents were more like _reminders_ , if you will. John Murphy was quite helpful then. Still, nothing _changed_. That was unacceptable. Anya knew this. There was no other option after that. We can't have liabilities around."

"You're fucked up," Clarke snarls, overcoming her disbelief at the way Alie tells them this without the slightest hint of remorse. Is it justification if she doesn't even sound defensive?

"I'm a businesswoman, Clarke. Those are very different things."

"Not in this case."

Alie smiles sardonically at them and takes another drink out of the cup. "It's been nice meeting you," she says casually. "Pity it's under these circumstances."

What happens next is fast, taking both of them by surprise. Seemingly out of nowhere, one bodyguard – neither of the ones flanking Alie – grabs Bellamy, while another grabs Clarke, pulling her arms back and twisting them so hard she can't hold back the slight scream. She tries to kick him, tries to scramble out of his grip, but he doesn't let go, just drags her across the floor and throwing her against the coffee table, the ends of which bash against her head and shoulder. Clarke feels the blood trickling down her face and it takes her a second to shake the disorientation away.

"GET! THE FUCK! AWAY FROM HER!" Bellamy yells as he fights with his own bodyguard. He lands a few punches, but it only enrages the other guy, who doubles down on his attacks, smashing Bellamy's head against the wall. Clarke scrambles up as best she can, a steady _please be okay_ looping through her mind, only to be tossed back down by the bodyguard, who drags her to the radiator in the corner.

"Let go of me!" Head ringing and blood dripping from her temple, she resorts to biting down on the guy's hand when he tries to twist the rope around her wrists and the radiator. He yelps and knocks her head back against the radiator, but unfortunately doesn't let go. With a growl, he finishes tying the rope and glares at her when he moves away. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck," she says, wriggling against the hold and tugging so hard she might dislocate something. The tie is solid and secure and no matter what she does, she can't break out of it, or get into a position where she can do anything. A minute later, the other bodyguard brings Bellamy over, weak and half-conscious and Clarke has to stifle the cry that rises in her throat.

"Bellamy," she says, pleads, in anguish. "Bellamy –"

"I'm… okay," he manages, face twisted in pain. She turns the force of her glare towards Alie, who simply finishes the cup of tea and stands up, unperturbed by the violence that's just occurred.

"It doesn't look like you're in any state to see us out, so we'll do it ourselves," she says, nodding at them. As if on cue, the smoke detector starts beeping, and Clarke whirls around to find flames licking the wall of the kitchen. In the midst of their struggle, one of them had set the house on fire.

A sob sticks in her chest. "Please… please let Bellamy go," she says, not caring that she's begging Alie now. "He only did this because of me, it's not his fault, just let him go." Clarke pulls at her restraints again to no avail.

"That wouldn't be fair," Alie chides. "He so wants to be here with you. I would never dream of separating you two." As the flames get higher and further along, Alie surveys the house. "Before I leave," she adds, like it's an afterthought. "I did make you a promise." With a flick of her wrist, the flash drive lands a few feet away from the two of them, and Clarke watches as Alie and her bodyguards leave the house like nothing happened. The beeping is getting louder, and sharper, mirroring the advance of the fire. Beside her, Bellamy groans, pulling himself into consciousness.

"Get… get out of here," he commands weakly, but with a sense of urgency. His eyes flit back and forth between the flames and her. "Clarke, you," he winces, "Get out of here."

Gritting her teeth, she's torn between telling him not to hurt himself even more and to tell him to shut up. "I _can't_ ," she says, trying to pull the ropes.

"You _can_ ," he says, insistent. "Stop trying to pull both hands out, start with one." What makes it harder isn't that the ropes don't give – because they do, miraculously – but the fire spreading into the living room heightens the pressure she feels, and with Bellamy looking like he's only keeping his eyes open as long as she's here, she can't help but fumble with the ropes, the friction of it burning across her skin as the fire reaches the broken coffee table and starts to swallow it up. She tries not to breathe in any of the smoke.

"Do you have your phone?" Bellamy interrupts, breaking her concentration.

"No," she answers, bewildered. "It's in your room, I think, I don't know –"

"It's fine, mine's in my pocket," Bellamy shifts and indicates which pocket he's talking about. "Call Raven, tell her to activate the tracker," he coughs a few times and casts a desperate look behind him, where the fire is advancing. "I put one on the guy when we were fighting. Tell her to use it so they can find her. Take that flash drive and get out of here."

Her eyes widen and she shakes her head. " _No_ ," she says. "I'm not _leaving_ you, let me help you –" In her panic, she pulls too hard and twists something in her other wrist, the one that wasn't already sprained, and she grimaces.

" _Clarke_ , breathe. Calm down. Get yourself out."

" _NO_ ," she cries. "I'm not fucking leaving you here. I'll – I'll get those ropes off, I will." With a crashing relief, she finally wrestles her hand out and unravels the rope with it so she's free. Only sheer determination and the need to get Bellamy out is keeping her mind away from the fire, which is getting so close she feels suffocated by the heat.

"Get _out of here_ ," Bellamy practically shouts. "I'm not letting you –"

" _I don't take orders from you_ ," she snaps, and a second later, her shaking fingers undo the last knot that binds his wrists to the radiator. She pulls him up, basically dragging him at this point and then scoops up the flash drive. He stumbles a little but grabs her hand again.

"Run," he says, and she doesn't need to be told twice, as they dash across the room, fire on their heels, hands scorched on door knobs, before they finally escape and collapse ten feet away from the burning house.

Bellamy's head knocks back against the grass and Clarke reaches for him, kissing his face out of desperation and relief and adrenaline. "Oh my god," she says into his chest.

His arm wraps around her back. "You're okay," he says, the words a little labored.

"You're okay," Clarke repeats.

***

**_CONWAY TAKEN INTO CUSTODY AFTER CAR CHASE_ **

Elyssa Li, Polis Sun-Times

_Alie Conway, CEO of the Alie Corporation, who has been credited for the success of numerous businesses, was taken into police custody Tuesday afternoon after a four hour car chase. Our sources can confirm the numerous incidents and explosion at Anya's Pastries, a bakery in Arkadia owned by Anya Archer, occurred under the direction of Conway. Additionally, she was responsible for the fire at 110 N. Walden Court, which injured two residents that were able to escape before the fire consumed the house. (Story continued on B6)_

***

Miller, the paramedics, and their friends arrive a short time later, and Clarke doesn't remember much except the paramedics lifting her onto a stretcher, her yelling at them to take care of Bellamy first, and waking up in a hospital room in a panic until she saw Bellamy in the bed next to her.

They tell her she had a concussion, another sprained wrist, first degree burns, and the effects of smoke inhalation. She's kept on an IV and an oxygen tube for the first day and drifts in and out of sleep. When she wakes up the next day, Bellamy's still unconscious, but everyone reassures her that he's doing fine and just sleeping.

Miller tells her that they caught Alie, thanks to the tracker, and that she wasn't lying when she offered them the flash drive. It has everything they need to build an impenetrable case against her, but aside from the feeling of accomplishment, Clarke finds that she doesn't want to spend hours debriefing and thinking and analyzing after a case, like she normally does, because she can't think about that when Bellamy still hasn't woken up.

Bellamy finally wakes up on the third day, when she's taking a walk with Monty, so _of course_ , he wakes up then. He's frantic when she steps in the room and calms down at the sight of her.

"Hi!" She gasps, running over to his bed, where he's still attached to an IV. She grabs his face in her hands and scans for any sign he's not doing well, as if she can tell just from looking. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I _really_ hate fires?" He says, attempting a half grin.

"Someone had to break you out of that." She drops a kiss on his forehead, practically the only non-injured spot on his face.

"You okay?"

"I'm not the one still in a hospital bed."

"You have two braces on right now."

"Still not in bed, though."

"Can't refute that."

"I do have an unfair advantage over you."

He smiles softly at her and she sighs happily. "I'm glad you're okay," he says, caressing her cheek.

"Thanks for waking up," she says back, leaning into his touch.

"Least I could do."

The nurse comes in a while later, forcing Clarke off the bed and telling Bellamy that he should've let them know he was awake. He nods and apologizes and smiles and charms, while Clarke rolls her eyes at the theatricality of it all. As soon as the nurse leaves, she's back to her place on his bed, sitting so she faces him. He has her hand loosely linked with his. "Hey."

"What's up?"

"That eight and a half month break idea is sounding really good right now."

"I didn't agree to eight and a half months."

"Ten months."

She elbows his leg. "Not how negotiation works. I could go for that though."

He runs his thumb across hers. "Sounds good."

"You know we'll run into trouble, right?"

"I'm counting on it."

***

(As it turned out, it only took one month before they were pulled into another case, but that was neither here nor there.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I HOPE YOU'VE ENJOYED IT!! Let me know your thoughts! PS today is also a good day to donate to the ACLU :)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm at [bestivals](http://bestivals.tumblr.com) on tumblr!!! hmu


End file.
